


Between Our Two Lives

by primalrage



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, American History, Attempt at Historical Accuracy, Cowboy AU, Everyone is younger, Japanese Culture, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Japanese Rope Bondage, M/M, Meiji era AU, Overwatch is a cattle ranch AU, Samurai, Wild West, Young Hanzo Shimada, Young Jesse McCree, Young Jesse McCree/Young Hanzo Shimada, not going to lie, this was low key inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-01-06 14:00:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 74,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18389831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primalrage/pseuds/primalrage
Summary: A Samurai/Cowboy AU, based on historical events - The 20th century is approaching. The new Emperor of Japan has turned the country upside down and young Hanzo Shimada, once in line to be the next lord of Hanamura, has now been stripped of his title and his sword. Instead, he and his brother Genji are sent to America, where they will spend a year immersed in Western culture. However, a train robbery gone wrong leads to Genji being terribly wounded, and Hanzo must rely on the kindness of a young outlaw Jesse Mcree. Together, they trek across the Wild West towards the safety of Overwatch, a cattle ranch where Jesse knows Genji can be saved. Hanzo finds himself suddenly immersed in cowboy culture, grappling with his sense of lost identity and with the powerful feelings he inexplicably has for this young American who is as wild as the unforgiving landscape.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> WOW GUYS OKAY SO - this story has been a looooooong time in the making. I originally hand-wrote the first draft in November for NaNoWriMo, and it ended up nearly 100k words long. I was literally in the process of writing this when Ashe was added to the game, and I was like HOLY SHIT THIS IS PERFECT. She was honestly a gift from Blizzard that helped me complete this fic. I've spent the past five months typing this up and editing it. It is by far my favorite thing that I have ever written. 
> 
> Note that ALL of the characters have been aged down. I never officially state their ages in the story, and I don't have any specific number in mind, but Jesse/Hanzo/Genji are all very young men, with Genji maybe 18 or 19 or 20 and Jesse and Hanzo their respective ages in relationship with that. This means that while characters like Fareeha and Brigitte are featured heavily in the story, they are children and therefor probably acting differently than you would expect them to because of how much they have been aged down. But I tried really hard to keep everyone close to in-character as their age and as this AU would allow.
> 
> Similarly, there is no specific time period when this story takes place. It happens during the Meiji Era in Japan, so it could be as early as 1868 all the way up to 1899 - which does coincide with the end of the sort of "Wild West" period in American history (1865 - 1895). So that's the general time period this is set in, just keep that in mind. Because of the huge rang of potential dates, there may be some slight historical inaccuracies, as things may have happened a year earlier or later, but I really did try to keep this as historically accurate as my research allowed. 
> 
> ANYWAYS - Enjoy!

Hanzo wanted to reach New York as quickly as possible. The way he saw it, the sooner he arrived in the city, the sooner he could get the trip over with. He knew that the logic was flawed, the duration of his stay in America would be a year all the same, but he had no desire to meet these Westerners. Nor did he wish to try their foods, see their sights, learn their ways. He wanted simply to reach New York, bury himself in his studies, and perhaps be able to forget that his father had forced him to come to this unbearable country.

From the moment he had disembarked the ship, San Francisco had disgusted him. The city began right at the shore and seemed to spread out endlessly, buildings of mismatched architecture arranged in uneven columns and rows, the streets steaming with fresh horse shit. The stench was so strong that even though they were right at the coast, he could not even smell the seasalt on the breeze. There were so many people around, enough that he felt claustrophobic. The men were bearded and burly, stinking of tobacco and liquor and horse sweat, and they looked half-wild with the layer of grime they wore on their skin and clothes. The women seemed similarly uncivilized, speaking loudly, behaving with no manners, and dressing flamboyantly in layers of ruffled fabric as they pulled dirty-faced, spoiled children behind them as they walked the streets. The most alarming sight was the cable cars, which were packed from end to end with bodies and barreled around corners at reckless speeds, threatening to run over pedestrians who were not careful. And in every alley, Hanzo caught sight of immigrants like himself, mostly Chinese, who watched Hanzo with hard eyes full of distrust. They saw that he was from elsewhere, like them, but that his spirit had yet to be broken by the white men who were prejudiced and hateful. Soon, he would know his place, these immigrants thought at the sight of the young Japanese man with his head held high. But they underestimated Shimada Hanzo. His haughtiness would not be crushed by this place, as hard as it may try.

His brother Genji's excitement about the city only made Hanzo angrier and more eager to return home. His head bounced around on his shoulders, taking in all the sights, and he chattered endlessly with the porters who had been sent to help them with their luggage. He was impressed by the cable cars, and, each one that passed, he would stop to watch with his mouth agape, like he could fathom nothing in this world more incredible. In a stall on the street corner, a butcher was stripping the flesh from a deer carcass, and Hanzo had to physically grab his brother to pull him away. Genji had no idea that anywhere in the world they ate deer. He had never seen these strange wide-brimmed hats that every man wore, nor had he ever seen drunks vomiting in the streets outside of rowdy saloons, or such fantastically huge animals as the draft horses pulling wagons towards the railroad station. He had also never seen a gun before, and yet here men wore them like fashion accessories – rifles on their backs, revolvers or pistols at their hips – to Genji, this was as good as costumes in a parade, but to Hanzo, it seemed only an insult. Just a few years before, the brothers had been forced to surrender their swords to the new Emperor, who demanded weapons be taken out of the hands of civilians. Even their ancestral blades, passed down through generations, had not avoided the Emperor's greed. Here, in America, every man had a weapon, only making Hanzo more aware of his own loss.

Genji had never been to Nagasaki with their father on business, but Hanzo had, and Hanzo considered Nagasaki to be a far more sophisticated city than San Francisco. There were far more foreigners in Nagasaki, and not just filthy ones who lived in poverty, but great, educated men and women from all over the world. In Nagasaki, one could stroll the streets and hear Chinese spoken alongside Dutch, or Portuguese, or English, or even Spanish and French. There, his father had treated him to steamed pork belly buns, purchased right from the hands of the Chinese man who had made them, and, in the Dutch part of town, he had eaten apple tarts and poffertjes until he felt like bursting. Did San Francisco have these things? Hanzo doubted it. When he looked around, all he saw was illiterate brutes and roads filled with shit. Just give Nagasaki a cable car system, or even Yokohama, Hanzo thought, and San Francisco would have nothing that Japan lacked.

“Can't we just take the cable car for one block?” Genji pleaded.

But after so many months on board the ship, Hanzo was glad to be walking on solid ground again. They had spent so long crammed in their compact quarters, being flung around at the mercy of storms, and growing more and more sick of each other's company that Hanzo dreaded the trip back to Japan already, and there would be a full year before he had to face it. What would life even be like, he wondered, without constant seasickness? When he stood still, as they waited to cross intersections, he still imagined he could feel the earth move like the swells of water beneath his feet. “You can do as you please,” Hanzo muttered, but nothing could have convinced him to board one of those things, not when so soon they would practically be prisoners on the tracks of the trans-continental railroad. 

Of course Genji would not leave his brother's side, not even for the thrill of riding a cable car, and so he returned to his conversations with the porters, who began to tell him the illustrious history of the hotel they would be staying at. Hanzo zoned out once more, seething in his anger, watching every step for piles of excrement in his path.

It was unbelievable to Hanzo that his life had somehow taken such a sharp turn for the worst. His home, back in the proud village of Hanamura, was a magnificent castle! He had once been the eldest son of a daimyo, descended from legendary samurai! His father's concubines had spoiled him from birth; even as they fought among each other for the daimyo's affections, they had bent over backwards to keep his sons happy. He had studied to be a warrior – swordsmanship, horseback riding, archery – and he had also been educated in tea ceremony, flower arrangement, poetry, music, and meditation. The whole of Hanamura called him Little Lord and worshiped him like a child God. He would have inherited his father's title. He would have become the ruler of Hanamura. He would have had a house full of concubines himself. All if it had not been for Emperor Meiji and his new laws. The worst part was how his pathetic father had been so fast to turn his back on his life and family in order to appease the Emperor. It was all about ass-kissing, all about politics. It made Hanzo sick. One moment, he had been the Little Lord of Hanamura, and the next he had been nothing but the eldest son of one of the Emperor's dogs.

And now here he was. Walking through the rank, grimy streets of San Francisco, about to board a train to New York, where he was to study at an _American_ college. As if his education at home had meant nothing. He could play the shamisen! He could recite the poetry of ancient monks! He could slice a man in two with one swing of his blade, if his sword had not been forfeit to the Emperor. Could a single soul in all of the states of America boast any of those things? This country _disgusted_ him.

In the time it took for Hanzo to thoroughly curse his father and every man, woman, and child in this country, they had made their way to their hotel. It was a stately building, four stories high, built of white bricks laid to give the impression of ancient Grecian columns. There were innumerable windows, so the thing seemed more glass than anything else. No building in the proximity was quite as grand. Still, Hanzo was not impressed. They were building hotels like this in Tokyo now, and, while he had never stayed in one, his father had taken him inside once to dine at the restaurant. The opulence had been vulgar to him – all marble and crystal and stained-glass. Hanzo's definition of beauty was very aligned with the Japanese aesthetic of transience and imperfection – the chip at the rim of a favorite bowl, the shifting of sand and pebbles in his family's rock garden, the blossoming and death of flowers. How could Westerners lack even the barest minimum of modesty? Of course his father, lapdog to the Western-worshiping Emperor, would pick a hotel like this.

Inside, the grandeur continued. Much of the lobby was taken up by a vast gilded staircase – of course lit by glittering chandeliers. The rugs at their feet were as elaborate as tapestries, and all of the furniture was a lovely dark walnut. Even the little wooden legs of each chair were intricately carved into the heads of lions. Arranged around the furniture were lush, live plants potted in what was designed to resemble Chinese vases. Guests lounged around in their suits and gowns enjoying the music being played on a piano in the center of the hall, or smoking as they read the daily newspaper, or simply walking around with their necks craned to admire the domed glass ceiling. Hanzo could notice, scanning these made-up faces, that he and Genji were the only foreigners here. All of the languages they had overheard in the streets had been shut out of this place.

One of their porters began to deliver a rehearsed welcome speech, describing the details of the sights in the lobby from the species of plants to the sources of the wood used for the furniture, naming renowned guests that had stayed in the hotel, giving an overview of its history. Genji was a rapt audience, occasionally piping up with questions – _Really? Painted by him?_ or _Wow! Imported from there?_ or _That many karats? No way!_ \- and by the time they reached their rooms, Hanzo was glad to be away from his brother and the porters alike.

His was a well-lit, airy room with fewer embellishments than the lobby, although the size was nearly unbelievable. Cut the room in half and it still would have felt enormous. There was a lounge, with sofas and chairs arranged around a decorative fireplace, and, behind that, a sturdy little writing desk between two tall windows. A curtain could be drawn to separate this room from the room beyond, which contained the bed - a monstrous thing on a platform at the room's center – as well as a wash stand, vanity, and dresser. Everywhere, bouquets of flowers had been arranged so that the room smelled of peony and phlox.

The first thing that Hanzo did was hurry to his suitcases, which the porters had refused to allow him to carry himself. They had been set in the center of the room, and when the staff had tried to help unpack them, Hanzo had shooed them away. From the pile, he picked out one – a hard case of highly polished cherry wood, nearly twice as long as the others. He carried it across the room to the bed and laid it on the mattress with careful reverence, his fingers caressing it the way a man might caress the body of a lover, before flipping opened the snaps.

The Storm Bow, in its traveling case, was undamaged. Hanzo, who had not been able to open the thing since leaving Hanamura, was relieved. He ran his palm along its curved limbs, and he imagined the precious thing purring at his touch.

Hanzo hated that bow. He was a swordsman, like his father and his father's father and all the fathers before them. But, of course, the son of a daimyo must learn archery as well, so Hanzo had taken up this bow only begrudgingly. He was a damn good archer, but it was the weight of a blade in his hand, and the sound of the metal slicing through air as he brought it down in an arc, that excited him. He could shoot and aim better than even his instructors, even on horseback. And yet, as nearly inhumanly good as he was with the bow, he was even better with his sword.

Having that stolen from him, and given to the Emperor as a sign of servitude, was a blow that had driven the young man to bitterness towards his family, his country, and the world as a whole. His father had offered to let him keep his sword on one condition – Hanzo must join the new national army. Ha! As if Hanzo would ever work on behalf of the Emperor. His father, in abandoning their ancestral ways, had become a pitiful and weak man in Hanzo's eyes. And Genji, always their father's favorite, his little _Sparrow_ , was quick to embrace Western culture. Seeing Hanzo withdraw, their father had announced that he was sending the pair of brothers to study at a university in New York. He had spent countless riches to fund the trip, had used every connection with the new government to make it happen. He claimed it was for Hanzo's good, but Hanzo saw right through his father's plan. He knew that his father thought Hanzo would see the Western World and realize the Emperor was right. It was a lost cause. Hanzo hated the West with everything inside of him. He hated the bed that he would be forced to sleep in rather than his futon. He hated the horse shit on his shoes. He hated the cable cars that they would never take and the train cars that they would be forced to board tomorrow.

But he especially hated this bow. With his sword taken from him, this bow was all that Hanzo had left. It was a constant reminder of what he had lost. And yet it was all he had to cling to his identity. He shut the case with a huff of disgust, unwilling to even look at it a second longer. 

 

* * *

 

 

The locomotive was more monster than machine, breathing black clouds of smoke like a giant iron dragon. Hanzo stood on the platform, being jostled by all of the other passengers around him, admiring the thing despite himself. At his side, Genji was in open awe. The ground seemed to tremble from the vibrations of its angry engine. Hanzo imagined it eager to be freed from its breaks, tearing across the country with sparks beneath its wheels.

It was hard to believe that he would be living on the train for the next week and a half. At the front were cars for baggage, and a mail car, followed by the passenger cars. At the very back of the train was the special hotel car that their father had arranged for them. For the first time, Hanzo was glad for his father's excessive wasting of money; rather than deal with sharing quarters with Western strangers, he and Genji would be able to keep to themselves, spread out comfortably. In fact, from what he could see inside the other cars, most passengers would have nothing more than a single seat to themselves for the entire journey. He knew that at night, the seats could be converted to small berths, but, even then, a quarter of a car might hold six passengers, all cramped together in an area no larger than a closet.

A representative from the railroad company met the Shimada brothers on the platform. He greeted them in slow, deliberate language, visibly uncomfortable in their presence. It wasn't until Genji piped up in his near-perfect English that the officious little man began to show them any genuine warmth, leading them to their car and introducing each member of their small team of servants. Hanzo ignored the introductions; he did not care to know these people. Instead, he looked around, and the opulence sickened him even more so than the hotel. This was a train car; how dare it be so excessive! There was an observation deck off the rear, and a parlor with seating for twelve people. The ceilings were high and domed, from which hung chandeliers every bit as majestic as those in the hotel. The wood was all dark, rich cherry, and the upholstery a lavish velvet in emerald green. Lead by the railroad staff, the group continued the tour and made their way up through the car's narrow corridor. Hanzo saw the two double bedrooms, one of which – the man explained to them – had been a stateroom for two, but had been converted just so that neither brother had to sacrifice comfort during the trip.  The nooks would be claustrophobic in comparison to the room he had slept in the previous night, but Hanzo was glad for it; he had not been able to sleep at all in the hotel, because the room seemed to echo with even the smallest of sounds due to its size. There was also, farther up the corridor, a bath and small toilet, as well as an actual barber's chair. At the front of the car was a full-sized dining table, a small kitchen, and fully-stocked pantry. There were very tiny rooms across from the kitchen and pantry, which Hanzo assume were the rooms for the staff, but they were not included in the tour. Overall, a whole party could have lived in this train car, but the brothers would have it to themselves. Meanwhile, the hundreds of other passengers would be stepping all over each other in the rest of the train. Hanzo was torn between relief and disgust.

“Put my bags in the first room,” Hanzo instructed the staff, “And bring me a cup of tea.”

He turned towards the door to his newly-declared room, but Genji stopped him, grabbing him by his forearm, “Brother! I thought we could stand on the deck while the train gets up to speed.”

Hanzo shrugged him off and began barking a whole list of orders – what times he wished to be woken up or served meals, that he would be drinking tea instead of the traditional American cup of coffee, the temperature he expected his bath water to be – try as he might to convince himself that he was outraged by the displays of wealth around him, he had been raised with servants from birth, and it was easy for him to step back into the role of Little Lord.

“ _Hanzo,_ ” Genji said sharply.

Finally, at the venom in his little brother's voice, Hanzo stopped and turned to face him. Genji. His only sibling, despite every concubine's best attempts to bare more children. There was no warmth between them anymore, but as children, they had been inseparable. Genji had looked up to him so much. Hanzo recalled how he would capture the koi from the garden pond in his bare arms while Genji, a tiny thing, cheered him on, until one day their father found out about their game and nearly beat them in his rage. Nearly, but he had not. And Hanzo remembered on Boy's Day every year, when the carp-shaped streamers were hung outside – one large black carp for their father, the medium-sized red carp to represent himself, and the smallest blue one for Genji – how Genji had cried that his streamer could not be red like his brother's. “Red is for the eldest son,” their father had explained, but Genji, who wanted to be exactly like Hanzo, had refused to understand. When Genji grew restless during lessons, the tutors all knew to fetch Hanzo to talk him into settling down. And for most of his childhood, Genji refused to bathe unless he did so with Hanzo, until the boys were both too grown to share the tub, and then Genji, in protest, had refused to bathe at all for close to two months before Hanzo had been able to convince him, where the family's servants had failed, that taking baths alone was very cool and made Genji _practically_ an adult. Genji had clung to Hanzo like a shadow. The idolization had driven Hanzo crazy! But the brothers had loved each other so much.

And, yet, now, here they were.

Hanzo looked upon Genji with contempt. Wearing Western clothes, Genji looked nothing like the boy whom Hanzo had once called Brother. Given up his swords, his identity, his honor – Hanzo felt that his brother had been lost to him, just as their father. He felt like an orphan, very far from home and very alone.

“Are you planning on staying shut away the entire trip?” Genji asked.

The staff pretended not to notice the confrontation between the brothers and began to bustle around, preparing tea or opening the curtains or unpacking supplies.

“Yes,” Hanzo said, “I have no interest in admiring the scenery of a country that does not want us here.”

Genji blinked but said nothing. The disappointment was plain in his face, maybe even some heartache was visible there, too. Hanzo held his gaze for one breathless moment, wishing he had the courage to explain the betrayal he felt rather than just putting up all of these walls, before snatching the case containing Storm Bow from the hands of a servant and pushing his way into his room.

 

* * *

 

 

At first, Hanzo did just as he had promised. He sat in an armchair at the front of the car, close to the pantry and nook of servants' berths, with the curtains drawn, reading beneath a chandelier, not even allowing the natural light in, as if somehow this American sun would be poisonous to him. The servants kept his cup of green tea refilled, but the rest of the time their hovering manners made him nervous.

In contrast, Genji sat at the rear of the car, and he would leap to his feet to step out onto the observation deck constantly. The ride was surprisingly smooth, but very loud, and even if Hanzo had wanted to speak to Genji, at this distance there was no way to be heard. Genji would try to lure Hanzo back there: “Hanzo! See how lovely the mountains look in the distance!” 

“The only mountain I care to see is Fuji.”

Then, perhaps an hour later: “Hanzo! Come quickly! A herd of wild horses! They're so close to the tracks I feel as though I could jump to one!”

“Go ahead and try. Perhaps father will let us come home if you do something so foolish.”

Realizing that Hanzo was not convinced, Genji instead began to call out the things he saw. Acres of farmlands, growing stalks of corn higher than either Shimada brother was tall. Icy rivers where men had built wooden chutes to pan the waters for flecks of gold. Tremendous orchards spread over the land like blankets of emerald green.

At one point, when Genji made an attempt to placate his brother by coming forward for a cup of tea, both of them glaring at each other when the other wasn't looking, they were interrupted by shouts and gunshots from the cars ahead. Hanzo rose from his seat, gripping the book he had been reading until his knuckles were white. He had heard stories about all of the reckless, violent gangs of the American West, known for robbing trains at gunpoint. Hanzo made a leap across the car for his case containing Storm Bow, but their cook popped his head out of the pantry and stopped him with a grin.

“Don't worry, Sir,” he said, pointing to the windows on the left side of the train, “Go on! Take a look!”

So Hanzo pulled back a curtain and finally, for the first time, took a look outside.

At first, he failed to notice what was causing the commotion, because the sight of the scenery spread out before them was hypnotizing. From the tracks to the horizon, nothing was flat – the land was all hills and valleys and, far in the distance, great snow-capped mountains that pierced the vibrant blue, cloudless sky with their jagged peaks. Turquoise rivers cut across the earth, churning frothy in their rocky beds, surrounded by tall dark pine trees that grew needle-straight. His eyes struggled to take it all in as the train sped past. He understood suddenly why this was nicknamed the “Wild” West. Back home, even the wilderness had a gentle, comforting, picturesque quality to it. There was no place in Japan that he could venture without feeling the spirits of nature surrounding him. But here, the world he glimpsed seemed so vast and chaotic and somehow _lonely_ as well. Like even the Gods were not at home in this untamed landscape.

Genji put a hand on his shoulder, startling Hanzo from his thoughts. His face was lit up with a smile. There was another burst of gunshots from further up the train, and Hanzo remembered what he was doing. He whipped around to look out the window once more.

The train had startled a herd of large mule deer, majestic, long-legged animals, thirty of them or more, and they ran at full speed alongside the tracks. The bucks had antlers as wide as they were tall. Men were leaning from the train windows up ahead, firing rounds at the herd. It seemed a great sport to them; even though no bullet hit its mark, they laughed together and bickered over whose shots hit closest, and even women and children could be heard yelling encouragement. Overhead, as if drawn by the gunfire and the possibility of bloodshed, eagles circled the train – a pair of them, each as large as a human child. They were bigger than any bird Hanzo had ever seen. He craned his neck up to watch the tilt of their dark wings as they moved through the windless air, ready to swoop and prey upon any deer that fell.

“Barbaric,” Hanzo muttered, and threw the curtain closed. But even as he retreated to his chair, to his cold cup of tea and the book he had now lost his place in, he felt the existence of those terrible, beautiful mountains all around them just outside the windows and truly appreciated the unbelievable size of this new country. He felt so far from home.


	2. Chapter 2

They would ride the train all the way to Omaha, Nebraska, making stops for meals along the way. It was a state and a city that Hanzo had never heard of before, and so he imagined a station in the middle of nowhere, even though the travel booklet that Genji had picked up in San Francisco described it as a major railroad hub. There, they would spend the night in a hotel before continuing to Chicago. Chicago was a city that Hanzo  _had_  heard about, mostly because of the fire that had destroyed so much of it. He wondered what he would see there – blackened ruins of buildings, rubble in the streets, not a living thing in sight besides the weary souls rebuilding it all? On the boat to San Francisco, he had nightmares of arriving in Chicago and finding the city still consumed by flames. They would stay a night in Chicago and leave their hotel car behind to continue the rest of the trip to Buffalo and finally New York City. For the last leg of the journey, the Shimada brothers would be forced to ride with the other passengers. Would these strangers steal from them? Would they be treated poorly for being Japanese? Hanzo had walked comfortably among the foreigners in Nagasaki, but now he was the foreigner himself, and he felt like a hare that had wandered into a den of foxes. 

That first night on the train, Hanzo dreamed he was one of the eagles. But his feathers were iron, and when he leaped from his perch, he plummeted, too heavy to support his weight no matter how frantic he flapped his wings. As he fell down the canyon wall, the colors flying past him were dizzying, patternless flashes of red – brown – yellow – orange until he had to close his eyes to avoid getting sick from it all. Just before hitting the ground, he sat up in his berth, panting for breath.

He forgot more and more of his dream with each lung full of air, until all that he recalled was the flickering colors. For some reason, he was struck by an urge to take out his bow and hold it in his hands. The case had been pushed beneath his bed, and he now felt it there like a gravitational pull below him. When the nagging desire wouldn't go away, Hanzo stood and pulled on a coat over the  _jinbei_  he had been wearing to sleep in and slipped into his shoes. He dragged the case out from under the berth and carried it through the length of the car and out onto the observation deck.

That day had been warm, but with the sun having set and a wind now pulling behind the train, Hanzo was glad for his coat, because the chill stole his breath. At least, that was the excuse he convinced himself of. Certainly his breathlessness had nothing to do with the astonishing sky – so immense and deep, every star visible like splatters of white ink on black parchment. There were stunning displays of color overhead, too. Swirls of pinks and blues, just barely saturated enough to be distinguished, as lovely as strokes from a calligrapher's brush. He felt so tiny, engulfed by that great moonless night. Nor, he fought with himself, could his breathlessness have anything to do with appreciation for the view. They had moved away from the valleys and were moving now through an environment of dried patches of grass, with rocks and tremendous boulders growing like vegetation from the earth in place of trees or shrubbery. Canyon walls had moved in closer around the tracks, obscuring his view of the mountains.

And there – on the ridge – a phantom in the starlight.

Hanzo shuddered, his fingers moving to the latches of Storm Bow's case. He could just make out the figure of a solitary man on horseback, less than a kilometer away and gaining closer. The night was so clear that Hanzo could have sworn he felt them make eye contact. He raised a hand in greeting, and thought that it must be wonderful to be so free. No emperor or father giving you rules to live your life by. Just a man and a horse in the middle of one of the last untamed parts of the world. What kind of errand must this man be on? Hanzo knew so little of life in this country that he couldn't even guess.

To his surprise, the man waved back, and for the first time in many months, Hanzo smiled.

“What is in that case you've been carrying around, brother?”

Hanzo jumped. It was Genji in his nightclothes, moving in beside him to lean against the railing.  When Hanzo finally tore his eyes off his brother, the stranger on horseback had disappeared.

“What are you looking for?” Genji asked.

“Nothing,” Hanzo said, “I thought I saw a wolf, is all.” Why did he lie?

“They have coyote here, too,” Genji said. He put his hand on the case that Hanzo still clutched tight. “What is this?”

Hanzo bristled and tugged it away from Genji's fingers.

“Just tell me, brother,” Genji said, “We are so far from home, I cannot tell on you. I cannot make you take it back. There is no reason to hide things from me. For months, it will be just you and I. Do you really want to start by keeping secrets?”

Mostly because he was tired of guarding the case, Hanzo sighed and flipped the clasps. As soon as he did, his imagination went wild – what if Genji threw it off the train? Why had he given in and showed him?

“Hanzo. Father told us to turn in our weapons,” Genji said, “You said you would rather give them up than join the army. Why would you hide this from him? And from me?”

Hanzo scowled. “He said nothing about bows. Only swords.”

“If he had known you would do this, he would have said bows as well. But you hated archery.”

Hanzo shut the case and closed the clasps, drawing it in against his chest. His eyes burned fierce, even in the darkness. “If I can't have a sword, I refuse to be defenseless.”

“Defense against what, brother? We are not samurai. We do not have a village to defend against invaders or warlords. We will never have to raise a weapon against another man in our new civilized life.”

“I do not want a new life!” Hanzo growled, shoving past Genji, back into the car.

“Where are you going?” Genji asked, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him back onto the deck.

Hanzo threw his hand off of him. “For a walk!” he barked.

“Then let me come with you! Talk to me, brother! I want to understand your feelings. It hurts me to see you like this. You are withdrawing from the family. Have you forgotten how close we were?”

Hanzo bared his teeth at his brother. He  _hated_ Genji in that moment. In his anger, a part of him considered pushing Genji off the train. Yes. That would solve everything. Just destroy Genji and escape into the wilderness. He felt like weeping; how had things come to this? “No,” he snarled, “You stay here! Leave me alone! You have always been father's favorite son, and I'm sick of you kissing his ass. You can give up your identity, but I  _refuse_ to lose mine!” 

He stormed up the length of their train car. Their fighting had woken the servants, who poked their heads out to watch him as he stomped past. He flung open the door and stepped out onto the connecting platform between their car and the next one up. Here, the wind was blocked from him, but he could hear it rushing past, so loud he could barely think. The connecting platform shook violently beneath his feet. It would be so easy to fall off the train out here. He felt a rush of adrenaline as he lunched forward, gripping the handles on either side of the door, and pulled himself into the car ahead.

It was a passenger car, the lights out, people asleep in the tiny beds that had been converted from their seats. A chorus of snores greeted him. Some restless passengers rolled over to watch him creep up the car, but no one spoke to him or did anything more than observe. He continued through the train – car after car, the noise from the engine growing steadily louder as he moved up. There were perhaps two hundred souls aboard, all trying to sleep through the roar. It amazed him, so many bodies crammed together, strangers against strangers. Just weaving through them to reach the next connecting platform made his skin crawl.

He supposed his destination was the baggage car. There would be armed guards there, but perhaps under the pretense of looking for something among his things, he would be allowed to stay there until he got his anger in check.

But he never reached the baggage car.

There was an earsplitting sound, louder than even the train engine, as loud as thunder, but impossibly close, and before he could react, before he could even lift his hands to his ears, a violent shock passed through the whole train. It was worse than the worst earthquake that Hanzo had ever lived through. He was thrown against the floor, the impact stealing his breath from his gut. People around him were flung from their beds. He drew the case beneath his chest, protecting Storm Bow as he was crushed by other bodies. Then a horrible squealing – he felt the sound in his teeth and bones – and the train began to tilt. As the travelers began to scream, he understood that the train was no longer on its tracks. All around him, weeping and sobbing. Shoes, women's purses, children's toys, toiletries, pillows, blankets – everything not nailed down was hurled around the car, raining down upon Hanzo and all the other passengers. The squeal of the rail wheels and the terrible convulsing of the train continued for what seemed an eternity, although it could only have been a minute at most, and Hanzo braced for the impact that never came.

When everything grew still, several of the men in the car rose to their feet and tried to make sense of what had happened. They shouted among each other, straining to see in the darkness outside of the windows. Children were howling, being comforted by their mothers, but overall, everyone seemed to have made it through the terrifying ordeal. The only injury was a woman who had been struck across the face by something falling from a shelf overhead; she had a bleeding gash across her brow, and a man in a striped nightgown began asking around for alcohol so he could tend to her wound. Hanzo observed these people in silence, clinging to the Storm Bow in its case. He wanted to return to Genji, but the path behind him was blocked by bodies and luggage.

Legs quivering, Hanzo instead moved further up the train, opening the door out onto the next connecting platform. The air smelled of something familiar. It took him a moment to place it. Summer festivals of his childhood. At night, his family and their guests would gather in the garden. Blankets would be spread across the grass. Everyone was served  _kakigori_ , his father flaunting wealth by letting them all know he could afford the fresh ice that was shaved for the dessert. And when the sun had completely set, the fireworks display would begin. His father had always hired master pyrotechnicians from across the country. Even the commoners in Hanamura would gather on their rooftops or in the streets to watch the show. Hanzo knew the smell. It was gunpowder. A  _lot_ of gunpowder. 

He climbed down between the two train cars and took many steps backwards to make sense of what he saw. Ahead of him, the engine was still in place, but every car behind it had derailed and zig-zagged across the tracks. When he turned to look behind, however, the sight was far worse. The train cars had tipped over entirely, leaving wounds gouged into the earth and a confetti of debris across the ground. And his own car, where Genji presumably still was, seemed to be missing entirely. It took him a long time of studying the horrific scene to understand that several of the cars at the back of the train had somehow been left behind. Still half a mile down the track, those cars were currently ablaze. Black clouds of smoke bled into the night sky, blotting out the stars entirely.

From every direction, screaming. Not just screams of fear, either. From the cries he heard, Hanzo understood that many, many people would need medical attention. There was another sound, too. At first his confused, panic-rattled brain mistook the sound for heavy rainfall. But then he noticed movement in the darkness, a wave crashing towards them across the plains. The sound was hoof-beats. Many dozens of horses were riding at full gallop, and their riders began to fire warning shots into the sky.

“The train's bein' robbed!” a passenger shouted.

Chaos erupted as the able-bodied men aboard tried to locate their weapons in the crash. Hanzo dropped to his knees and flipped open the case. By the time he had strapped the quiver full of arrows onto his back, the first group of horses flew past, so close that he curled in on himself to avoid being trampled by the pounding hoofs. The riders wore hats and kerchiefs pulled up to cover their faces. Now easily in range, the gunfire began, both passengers and outlaws aiming for each other. Hanzo had never heard anything like it before, each shot startling him so badly he could barely steady his bow. These men, and their weapons, were barbaric. The robbery didn't matter. The lives of these strangers didn't matter. Forget this fight; he just needed to find his brother.

He ran down the tracks, crouching low to avoid drawing attention to himself. The passengers of the overturned cars that he passed were so badly wounded that they could not fight back against the attackers. Through the dented walls and shattered windows of the cars, he could hear people weep and wail as men with rough voices demanded they put their valuables in bags. Hanzo was so focused on listening to the exchange that he nearly tripped over a body in his path, the skin blackened from burns, the nightclothes melted into flesh. Hanzo could not even tell if it had been a man or woman. As long as it wasn't his brother, he did not care to stop and check. 

“Genji...” he breathed to himself, gripping the Storm Bow tighter. Then he bellowed, “ _Genji!_ ” and bolted the last meters towards their car.

The tracks here were melted and twisted, and the car itself had been flung far. Hanzo finally could piece together what had happened. Some kind of explosive, he imagined, placed on the tracks. He shouted for his brother again, but the night rang with so much gunfire and hoof-beats that there was no way he had been heard.

Three riders circled the smoking wreck of his train car, which had been blown far from the tracks and stood on its side, all of the windows blown out. The animals tossed their heads and pawed at the grass, filled with nervous energy. One man dismounted and climbed up, onto what had once been the side of the train car, but which now faced up towards the stars. He jumped in through one of the broken windows, disappearing inside. Hanzo braced himself, listening hard for sounds of a scuffle, but inside everything was still. The second and third riders swung down from their saddles. Hanzo did not think; he pulled an arrow and let it fly. He had no doubt of its path. One of the men stiffened and collapsed. The second man gave a shout as the horses reared back, voicing their surprise with sharp whinnies. He waved his gun around, unsure of Hanzo's position in the dark, and Hanzo felled him with a second arrow, straight between the eyes.

“I could use a hand in here,” a voice called out from inside the car, “It ain't easy searchin' when everything's upside down, y'know."

Hanzo pulled himself onto the car and slipped in through the same shattered window. All of the furniture that had been fixed to the floor, which now was where the wall should have been, confused Hanzo's vision, and it was hard to make sense of his surroundings. The speaker had his back to Hanzo and was kicking through piles of broken china and scattered belongings. He was very tall and very big. In the darkness, his size was all that Hanzo could make out of him.

“Freeze,” Hanzo said.

The man did not – he nearly jumped out of his own skin – and when he turned to face Hanzo and saw the arrow aimed at his skull, he raised his arms very slowly in surrender.

“Give me your gun,” Hanzo said. He saw the thing, silver and sparkling in starlight, holstered at the stranger's hip.

“Now, Sir,” the stranger said, “You know I can't do that.”

Their eyes locked.

Even though Hanzo had been able to make out no details, he somehow was certain that this man was the horseback rider he had waved to from the back of the train, mere moments before. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago, but he knew it had to have been no more than half an hour. The man was barely a  _man_  at all, he was only just more than a boy, around Hanzo's own age if not younger. His jaw scruffy with coarse stubble and his hair shaggy around his handsome face. He had narrow eyes beneath thick, arched brows, and, despite the situation, those eyes looked gentle.

“I am lowering my bow,” Hanzo said, “My brother is in here. I need to find him. But if you so much as twitch, I will kill you. Do you understand?”

“Yessir.”

“I killed your friends already. Do not underestimate me.”

 The other young man flinched, but he answered gravely, “No, Sir.”

Hanzo kept his arrow notched, but lowered the bow and began to kick aside chairs and tables, sheets and pillows. The first body he found was of the cook, whose head had been split open. Hanzo gave a moan of sorrow; he had never even had the courtesy to ask this poor man's name. He spun to face the stranger, who still stood in place with his arms raised. His eyes burned with tears. “Where is my brother!” he shouted.

The man swallowed. “Can I move?”

Hanzo snarled at him, teeth bared like an animal. “Do not make a joke of my grief!”

“I... I'm sorry. I wasn't makin' a joke,” he said, “but I think he's over there.” And he gestured towards a form splayed beneath the dining table that was still nailed to the floor.

Hanzo stumbled through the mess to reach Genji and pulled him into his arms, holding the limp body against his chest. Shrapnel from the explosion had shredded through most of the right side of his body, leaving raw, bloody carnage. The flesh had been peeled from his arm and torso, revealing pink, mushy muscle beneath, all punctured with splintered wood and shards of glass. Hanzo sobbed, rocking his brother in his lap. The stranger's presence was forgotten as he wept.

If only he had not been so bitter, if only he had allowed Genji to follow him... then Genji would still be alive. His brother. His baby brother.

He cried. Many minutes must have passed, but he was unaware of the passage of time. It may have been a second or it may have been hours, but all he knew were tears. His whole life, he had fought to be strong, fought to control his emotions, but now he let everything out. Who did he have to be strong for, if Genji was gone? Outside, the first hint of a sunrise touched at the horizon. The gunfire slowed, then ceased entirely - in which side's favor, he did not know or care. The world became still again, but inside of him was a chaos greater than everything that had happened on the train that night. The stranger crept closer, and crouched behind him, but still, Hanzo could not stop mourning.

“Hey!” a woman's voice called from outside, “Anything good in there?”

Hanzo closed his eyes. They might as well take all of their money and belongings. He had lost Genji. What did anything else matter?

But the man behind him shouted back, “N-nothin, Ashe. T-this car was empty. Looks like they hadn't picked up the rich folk yet.”

“You serious?” the woman said, and yelled at someone outside with her, “Well  _shit._  Damn it, you bunch o' idiots!”

“Y'all can just go ahead and get outta here,” the stranger told her, “I'm gonna dig through this mess a bit more. I'll meet you back at camp.”

“I don't think that's wise,” she said, “We got all the guns, but it looks like someone's out here shootin' arrows. And they're a damn good shot, too. We lost enough men tonight. I don't need you skewered.”

“No, it's okay,” the man reassured her, “I shot that fella. He won't be shootin' arrows again.”

“You'd better bring somethin' good back and not be wastin' my time,” she growled.

There were voices outside. Hanzo could feel movement surrounding the car, then heard the clatter of hooves on the dry earth as the riders mounted their animals and rode off. He finally pulled his eyes off his brother to glance up at the stranger. He was incapable of looking fierce, for the first time in his life. “Why did you lie? What more can you possibly want from me?”

The stranger did not respond. He stared down at his boots, looking comically sheepish for a man so large.

“All of our money is in the lock box. It was beneath my bed,” Hanzo muttered, waving a hand in the direction of the berth he had been asleep in a mere hour ago.

“I don't want your money."

“Then leave me to grieve,” Hanzo replied.

“I... I don't think he's dead,” the man said.

Hanzo gazed down at his brother. The thought that he might still be alive, in the condition that he was, was almost worse than death. Much of the right side of his body had no skin left, only mangled red meat, and the blooded, wounded face could have belonged to any man, because all of the features were lost beneath the gore. “If he is not dead, then he will be soon.” He put a hand on Genji's uninjured left shoulder, and he gave it some halfhearted shakes, as if waking him from slumber.

_If only I had let him follow me..._

Genji made the smallest sob and his forehead knotted in pain. Hanzo stroked his brows with his trembling fingers, red from Genji's blood.

“We might be able t' patch him up,” the stranger suggested, shuffling closer to Hanzo's side, “I... I have some opium on me. It might help him with the pain.”

“Opium will not keep him alive,” Hanzo said.

“N-no. Yer right. But we could bandage him up a bit and take him to a doctor. I know a real good one.”

Hanzo finally found some ferocity within him, and he snapped, “How do you suggest that we get him there? Start the train back up? Even if we could, who knows how far it is to the closest civilized town in this wasteland of a country? And why help us? Why not go bother some of the other men, women, and children that your gang has murdered tonight?”

The man frowned. “Please,” he begged, “You got every right to hate me. You got every right to be mad. But your brother's still got a chance if we help him.”

And Genji, with a sob of agony, lifted his head. His bloody mouth moved, as if attempting to form words, but nothing came out except for ragged breaths. Hanzo glared up at the stranger and said, “Fine.”

The man nodded and hurried to the rear of the train car, where he was able to push the door to the observation platform open and wiggle out over the bars. Hanzo watched him leave, then returned his attention to his brother, rocking him in his arms and muttering apologies in Japanese. It was only a handful of seconds when the man dropped back down into the train through the shattered window. He came to crouch at Hanzo's side. His palm was full of a nasty substance that looked almost like dried flakes of tar.

“I've never eaten it before,” the stranger said, “We do more sellin' than smokin' too, to be honest. But in a pinch, I've used it for pain. It's real strong.”

Hanzo did not respond. What would he say? He certainly would not thank the man, when his gang of criminals was to blame. He wasn't sure that he trusted the stuff either. He knew the Chinese who smoked it became terribly addicted. But he had no other choice.

The man put his fingers to Genji's mouth and funneled the opium into his lips. Genji shuddered and tried to cough it up, spraying both men with flecks of blood. The cowboy threw his hand over Genji's mouth, and Genji was forced to swallow it to clear his throat. The whole scene was hard for Hanzo to watch. It looked like his brother was suffocating or drowning before, finally, he let his head roll back against Hanzo's chest and fell still. At least he had enough strength to cough, Hanzo told himself. That was something.

The man rose to his feet again and stumbled through the debris towards the pantry, where all the food had spilled into a mush against the wall. He waded through the mess, kicking aside heads of cabbage and tins of crackers, leaving a trail of boot-prints through spilled flour. He seemed to be looking for something.

“I saw you on the back o' the train,” the cowboy said as he searched.

“Yes. I should have known to shoot you then and there,” Hanzo growled.

The man crouched down and picked something, apparently whatever he had been looking for, out of the chaos. “They would have attacked the train anyway,” he said, “Ashe had 'em set up the dynamite hours ago. Only difference shootin' me woulda made is no one woulda been down here to mend up your brother.”

“Oh really?” Hanzo snarled, “So I should thank you, then? Is that what you think you deserve?”

“No, no, that ain't what I meant. I'm just sayin'... this wasn't my plan. This wasn't my fault.” He returned to Hanzo's side, and finally in the darkness Hanzo could make out what he had found – a bottle of vodka. “Here. Let me take him.”

He shifted Genji into the stranger's arms. When their bodies touched as they passed Genji between them, Hanzo felt an uncomfortable jolt down his spine. He pulled away quickly and got up to search the car for sheets and linens. He gathered what he could find and carried the pile over to the cowboy, who offered Hanzo a knife. Hanzo used it to tear the sheets into long strips, and the cowboy then soaked each one in vodka before beginning to dress Genji's wounds. Hanzo watched, unsure of how to feel. Obviously he  _hated_  this man for what he had caused, but he was also relieved that someone else was there to help him handle the situation.

“Listen, this place I know,” the stranger said as he worked, “it's close enough that I think we can reach it, but still three or four days riding.”

“Three or four? He will be dead before then!”

“I know it sounds bad, but this doctor... you gotta trust me. If he was my brother, this doctor would be the only one I'd trust with him. I reckon I got enough opium to last him til then, but while I wrap your brother up, you gotta get all the food you can to take with us, okay? And maybe a blanket for him?”

Hanzo hated being given orders like that, but he knew enough to hold his tongue, and he turned around to sift through everything that had fallen in the car. In the darkness, it was impossible to find anything. How the stranger was even to tending to Genji in here, Hanzo couldn't understand. The fabric he found and grabbed was one of his yukata that had fallen from the closet, or a curtain torn from the window rods, nothing he could wrap his brother in. And finding food was proving even more difficult than finding a blanket. Everything that had been tossed around the car was now completely inedible – fruits, vegetables, loafs of bread – all of it was full of broken glass, and just picking through it left his hands bleeding and raw. So, without being able to tell the contents in the darkness, he gathered the tins and jars that were still intact, and piled them into an empty flour sack that had exploded over the floor.

“I can't find a blanket,” he complained, “We tore them all up to make bandages.”

“You'll have to look in one of the other cars,” the man told him, “I don't mean to sound like I'm tellin' you what to do, but he can't regulate his temperature with how bad these wounds are. He'll die in the cold.”

“How do you know so much?” Hanzo asked. Could he even trust this man's knowledge to be accurate? But he supposed it sounded sensible enough.

“Like I said, I know a good doctor. The best around. I know I've done nothing to make me worth trustin', but you gotta trust me.”

Outside of the car, there was just enough light from the rising sun to appreciate the horror of the scene as he made his way back up the tracks towards the train cars that still stood intact. They were riddled with bullet holes. Bodies had been pulled out and laid in the grass. If not for the blood stains, they almost could have looked asleep in their nightclothes. He wandered through the gathered crowd of weeping children and shell-shocked adults, feeling like a ghost passing completely unnoticed by the others.

“The Deadlock bastards!” someone was shouting.

“They'll send help in a few hours,” one man, nursing a bullet wound in his right arm, was telling his wife, “When the train doesn't make its next scheduled stop.”

“If another train doesn't come through and crash on top of us first,” she muttered in response.

Hanzo climbed into the nearest car and found a man trying to get his two panicked children to go back to sleep in their berth. When Hanzo entered, the man lifted his head to meet Hanzo's eyes, but Hanzo quickly looked away. He was drenched in Genji's blood, so probably looked like he needed medical attention, but he did not want to be pulled into a conversation with a stranger. The passengers had abandoned their blankets during the chaos, and he scooped up armfuls of them from the floor – sheets and quilts, blankets crocheted from yarn, blankets of lamb's wool – he draped them over his shoulders, bundling them against his chest, until he could not even bend to pick up a single more. He must have stolen a dozen blankets, but felt no guilt.

On his way back, Hanzo saw Storm Bow's case discarded in the grass where he had abandoned it. He stooped to pick it up and hurried the rest of the way at a jog. The outlaw had somehow managed to carry Genji out of the train car and had laid him in the grass. Wrapped almost head to toe in makeshift bandages, he resembled an exhumed mummy. It would have been comical if it had been anyone else. The strips of sheets, once starchy white, were already browning from the blood seeping through their layers. The man himself was kneeling beside the bodies of his two fallen comrades. Hanzo could still see the shafts of his arrows protruding from their corpses. He didn't feel even the slightest twinge of guilt, even as the stranger appeared to be mourning them.

Hanzo dropped the blankets and entered the train car one final time. It took him several minutes of searching, with everything thrown out of place, to locate the safe. He stuffed Storm Bow's case with all of the gold that their father had sent them here with and then locked it once more. Considering their situation, the gold seemed like dead weight to him, totally useless, but the idea of leaving it there for the gang to possibly find was horrible to imagine. Taking the case back outside with him, Hanzo knelt beside his brother to stroke his face.

_He should have followed me... If we hadn't fought, we both would be safe..._

While he had been inside the car, two of the horses had been stripped of their saddles – a buckskin mare and a smaller but handsome seal bay stallion with wild eyes. The third horse, an overo mare, had her saddlebags packed with the food supplies, and the blankets he had found were strapped in stacks on her back. Seeing the animals ready to leave, Hanzo's certainty faltered. How long would they be traveling? Could he survive in the wilderness, let alone Genji, who was barely alive as it was? And most importantly – could this stranger really be trusted? He was a thief, and a murderer, but Hanzo knew he had also just saved Genji's life.

“Where exactly are you leading us?” he asked.

The stranger squatted on the ground beside Hanzo. With one finger – Hanzo's eyes were drawn to Genji's blood drying beneath his nails and in the crevasses of his cuticles – he drew triangles in the dirt. “These are the mountains. The tall ones to the southeast,” he said, and he pointed. Hanzo saw mountains all around them, ranges of varying heights and distances, but he didn't ask for further clarification, just nodded in response. He felt somewhat queasy at the possibility that this man might be talking about the ones on the horizon, so far that, back-lit by the sunrise, they could have been clouds.

“The doctor works at a ranch called Overwatch. It's about here.” He drew an X with his finger, nestled right in the triangles. “And we're... hmm... here?”

About a foot and a half away from the X, he rubbed a little circle into the dirt. It was on the opposite side of the mountains, but, even so, it didn't seem an impossible distance. Hanzo nodded to show that he was still following.

“Now, normally headin' to Overwatch, you'd ride to this train station about here,” he said, and took a moment to think about the placement before scratching a box into the dirt. It was just north of the X representing the ranch, right at the edge of the line of triangles. “From here to Overwatch is nearly a whole day of travel by itself, since the roads got to go around the mountains.”

He glanced up at Hanzo, to see if Hanzo understood his crude map. When their eyes met, Hanzo was again struck by how honest and warm the man's gaze was. They were like the eyes of a very good dog. Hanzo nodded his head again for the man to continue.

“So normally you'd ride the train to this station. From where we are, taking into account every stop the train makes before that, I dunno, I'd say it's maybe two days of travel? Almost three? I know it seems like it'd be closer, but look, you gotta go around the whole base of the mountain.” And he drew a line to represent the tracks, which indeed skirted the perimeter of the mountain range. “Plus it goes way up north first before coming back down. There's a city up there that's a big train hub, so even though it ain't the most direct, the tracks still go up there. So, see, it's this really crooked way filled with detours and stops. So let's say it's about three days to get to our station here, and another day's travel to get to Overwatch. And this is assumin' the train's runnin' normal, which it ain't, clearly. So now let's say you wait here to get rescued. Maybe they get help within the day, but then even best case scenario, you got four more days before you can see the doctor at Overwatch. And that's bein' real, real optimistic. Because who knows how long it'll take 'em to get all of y'all rescued, and then past that, you could be stuck in the next town for days and days before another train is able to come through. But just to be fair, just for the sake of this argument, let's say you get the best outcome, and you're at the doctor in four days.”

“So you believe you could get us to this doctor at Overwatch faster than four days?”

“Exactly. I know this land. There's a river on this side of the mountain. Somewhere that river crosses a little road, don't remember exactly where, that'll take us straight through the mountain to the homestead. When we ain't got enough rain, the folks at Overwatch head to that river to collect water. Once we find that path along the river, it ain't more than a two hour ride.”

“So how far is it to that path? You say you don't know where it was?”

The man shrugged, “Not exactly. But from here, two or three days. No more.”

“So worst case scenario is still better than the best alternative?” Hanzo asked. The man nodded and rose to his feet. He brushed the dirt from his pants. Hanzo stood up beside him, and Hanzo felt dwarfed by this young stranger's height. “Why are you helping me? Am I somehow more worthy than all of the other injured people here? Should we not offer them this opportunity for survival as well?”

“There's no way we could carry enough food n' stuff for these folks. There's hundreds of 'em. If we tried to take everyone with us, it'd only slow us down and put all of 'em in more danger. At least here, we know they'll get rescued. As soon as the train is reported late, they'll send help out to look. This ain't the first time Deadlock's blown up a train out here. They'll know how to handle it.”

“But you still believe I should go along with you, instead of wait for help with the rest of them,” Hanzo said, scowling up at the giant man. He tried to make himself look taller, puffing himself up to meet the man's eyes. “You still haven't answered  -  _why me?”_

The outlaw looked away, Hanzo's glare too scathing for him to withstand. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“You'll think I'm crazy.”

Hanzo snorted. “I already do.”

“W-well...” the man stepped closer to the buckskin horse, rubbing her muscular neck while he avoided meeting Hanzo's eyes, “When I saw you on the back of that train. I dunno. I guess I felt a connection to you somehow.”

“Ha!” Hanzo laughed, scraping through the dirt with the toe of his shoe, destroying the map sketched in the ground, “You're right! I do think you're crazy!” But as crazy as this cowboy seemed, Hanzo himself must have been even more crazy, because he grabbed the bay stallion's mane in one fist and swung himself up onto the animal's back. It shuddered beneath his weight.

“Lift my brother up to me, so that I can hold him,” he said, opening his arms expectantly.

“It's gonna be hard for you to ride double until you're more comfortable on the horse,” the man tried to protest, but Hanzo's scowl silenced him.

“Do not insult me,” he scoffed, “I've been riding horses since I was old enough to sit upright. My brother and I were both accomplished equestrians before you were even tall enough to climb onto a horse. Don't assume that I don't know my way around these animals just because I'm not a cowboy like you.”

The man laughed. It was such a vulgar, inappropriate sound considering how dire the current situation was. “I ain't a cowboy,” he said.

“I don't care who or what you are,' Hanzo snapped, “Just bring me my brother.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, remember in the intro when I said the original draft of this story was nearly 100k words long? Well this and the next chapter are the chapters where the vast, vast majority of the editing took place. There were whole scenes that I pulled for the sake of brevity. I just wanted to cut it down to the important parts, I guess, but I hope that I didn't do that at the expense of the flow of the story.
> 
> Please let me know what you think about the cuts I made!

For many wretched hours, Hanzo and the stranger followed the tracks south, the horses moving at a trot that seemed to Hanzo infuriatingly slow. His arms had grown tired from supporting Genji, but the weaker they felt, the harder he clung to him. The other young man rode at Hanzo's side, smoking a cigar. He did not speak, but Hanzo noticed how he kept glancing up and opening his mouth like he planned on saying something. Every time he'd shut his mouth again and go back to gazing at the horizon. Pink and gold were bleeding across the dark sky like ink in water, back-lighting the mountain ranges and casting the distant copses in black shadows. It might have been beautiful if he wasn't so numb from grief and horror and guilt.

Finally, the stranger built up the courage to speak: “Ain't never seen a tattoo like that,” he said, gesturing at Hanzo's arm, wrapped around Genji.

“You never will again, I imagine,” Hanzo said, “Our new government is trying to criminalize tattoos. My father wants me to keep it covered at all times, but I refuse.”

“That's a shame. It's real beautiful,” the man said, “You don't get along with your pa, huh?”

Hanzo clenched his teeth and fell silent. He was furious with himself for even allowing that one personal detail to slip out. But the cowboy was not satisfied with the silence, and he drew his horse in a little closer. They were riding side-by-side, within arm's reach. Hanzo could smell the cloud of rich tobacco around him.

“So,” he said, “you never told me your name.”

Hanzo felt a jolt of anger flash down his spine. “No. I did not.”

“Well? You gonna tell me?”

“After my brother is safe, you and I will never see each other again. My name is not important,” Hanzo answered.

“Oh, come on! If we're gonna be stuck together the next two or three days, then I gotta call you something.”

“Call me whatever you wish.”

The man laughed. “Am I just gonna shout 'hey, you!' or 'Japanese feller?' Come on, you can't be serious!” But the harsh expression on Hanzo's face was anything but jocular, and his smile was quickly wiped away, replaced with a pout. “Fine, _Dragon Boy._ ”

Hanzo scowled down at the tattoo on his arm as if it had betrayed him. When he still did not answer, the man huffed to himself and sped up a little, putting some distance between them. Hanzo stared at his broad back, wondering what his name was too.

 

* * *

 

 

After a tense hour, both men refusing to speak to each other, they left the tracks and rode east. At first, the early morning had been chilly, and Hanzo was glad for Genji's warmth in his arms and the sun directly on his face. But by that point, close to midday, the temperatures climbed again, and he was sweating and miserable. No matter how he shifted Genji, no matter how he tilted his face, there was no escape from the heat. He longed for a breeze that never came. Despite his discomfort, he knew he was doing the right thing for his brother. Genji would sometimes stir against him, or make soft noises in his pain, and Hanzo was relieved; as long as he had that energy, there was still hope.

The land here was an expanse of emptiness. Their horses were constantly moving up and down hills, but aside from changes in elevation, everything seemed to stretch on unchanging towards the horizon. No more trees, there were only dull, dried shrubs scattered across the yellow grasses. Hanzo felt exposed riding through here, but he also felt loneliness crushing down upon him. He didn't understand why; Genji was nestled against his chest and the cowboy was humming to himself a few meters ahead, yet still Hanzo could not shake the feeling. Perhaps it was because he had never seen a landscape so far from the lush, mossy, forested wilderness of his home country. Or because they were so far from civilization; back at home, because the country was so small, one could not travel long before encountering a village or signs of humanity. Or it could even have been because Hanzo understood that if something happened out here to him or his brother, there was not a soul alive that knew where he was and would know what had happened. In many ways, his ties to the world had been severed the moment he left behind that train crash. Now, he was completely at the mercy of this cowboy and the strange world around them.

They were many miles into their journey when Hanzo noticed his hands were damp from the blood seeping through Genji's bandages. The cowboy had been riding ahead with his back to them ever since Hanzo had told him that he didn't want to exchange names, but when Hanzo called up to him for help, the man gave a swift shake of his reigns and his horse spun to face Hanzo as though beast and rider were one flesh. “You okay?”

“He's still bleeding so badly...” Hanzo muttered, showing the man his palms, streaked with rusty brown.

“We need to add more bandages,” the man said, “Just wrap em on top of the current ones. Cuz if we peel off the ones he's got on now, the wounds won't heal.”

He dropped off his horse and raised his arms out to take Genji. Hanzo shifted his brother into the stranger's arms. With all the movement, Genji became conscious again, and he began to moan and weep, delirious with his pain. The man sat cross-legged in the grass, cradling Genji like a baby, and he tried to urge more opium into Genji's throat. The expression on his face was of such genuine concern that Hanzo nearly regretted acting so cold towards him. When his brother needed him most, the guilt and panic made him incapable. Without this stranger, Hanzo never could have saved his brother. But when he tried to draw up the courage and compassion enough to just say the syllables of his name, he was interrupted.

“Tear me up some more sheets, _Dragon Boy."_

Hanzo slipped down from his mount and hurried towards the third horse, who was carrying their supplies. He tugged a blanket off her back and began ripping it into long strips, but his hands were weak from fear and the tears were clumsy. When he passed them to the man, Genji had fallen still again, but his breathing was rapid and his face beneath the bandages was pallid and sweating. Hanzo watched as the man wound the strips of fabric around his brother. The familiar shape of Genji became more and more alien to him with each layer.

“I reckon all this moving around is keepin' his wounds from closin',” he said, “I wish we had the stuff to stitch him up.”

“You are not a doctor. I will not allow it.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine. But I reckon it'll help him if we stop for a while.”

“Absolutely not!” Hanzo barked, “We only just started!”

“He's gonna go into shock if he keeps losin' blood like this. If he ain't already. Listen, livin' out here, you learn some of how to keep yourself alive,” the man argued.

“We will not stop. No!” He grabbed his brother from the man's lap and tried to pull him back up onto the horse. It was impossible, because of how limp he was in Hanzo's arms. With all the pushing and jostling, the animal became nervous. It flattened its ears and tossed its head, only making Hanzo's job harder.

“Let me help you,” the cowboy sighed, rising to his feet and wiping his bloodied hands on his jeans. When he tried to take Genji's body back from Hanzo, Hanzo jerked away from him, even more wild-eyed than the panicked horse.

“Stay away from us! You don't care if he dies!” he yelled.

Genji whimpered in his arms, and from his damaged mouth came three soft syllables: “ _Onii-chan_...”

The words rushed over Hanzo like a bucket of ice-cold water. Genji had not called him that since they were small children. His vision blurred behind a veil of tears, and he quickly looked away so the cowboy could not see him crying.

After composing himself, Hanzo accepted help getting onto the horse's back with Genji in his arms. Again, they rode on. The scenery on the train had seemed to pass so quickly, but on horseback nothing seemed to change. The only real difference he noticed was the land was growing increasingly barren, the grasses more brown and wilted, the shrubs fewer and more far between. At some point Hanzo realized that they were riding through a riverbed, one that was completely dried up. The dust kicked up beneath the horses' hooves choked him. He shielded Genji's face from the dust and the sun with his hand, and Genji's pained expression softened at the touch. The drugs had lulled him, and, while he wasn't asleep, he was only barely conscious. It seemed the second application of makeshift bandages had helped stabilize him for now, but he was still ghost-white from his blood loss.

They made it perhaps an hour - upstream? downstream? it was impossible to tell with the riverbed empty - before the cowboy reached over to take the reigns from his hands. "We _have_ to stop," he insisted. And Hanzo saw that perhaps he had ridden too hard for too long, because the horse's mouth was foamy from the exertion.                                            

“I'll switch to the mare,” he said, but the cowboy shook his head.

“Yer brother needs to get outta the sun, and he needs to rest. And none of these horses can keep up this pace anymore. You gotta listen to me. If you kill these animals pushin' them this hard, we're so far from help that you and me _and_ your brother, we'll _all_ die.”

Hanzo felt helpless. He looked up at the sky, trying to guess how late it was in the day and how far they might have ridden. It was past noon, but how much past noon he could not tell. He scowled but did not argue. There was no point; this man was right. Without horses, they would be stranded. “Fine.”

They had stopped near a single white oak, standing tall and alive and defiant in this wasteland, and the cowboy nudged his horse into a canter to hurry for the shade. Hanzo sighed and followed, although the mountains on the horizon still looked too far. The cowboy jumped off his mount and hurried to pull his bedroll off the supply horse. Hanzo watched him lay it out in the shaded grass. He nearly snapped at the man for being so selfish, but then the man came to help Genji down from his arms, and he laid Genji out on the bedroll very carefully. Hanzo immediately felt bad for assuming the worst.

“Sorry,” the cowboy said, “I only got one.”

“As long as Genji has one,” Hanzo said, sliding down to his feet. They had been riding for so long that his thighs ached, and he wobbled more than walked towards the supply horse to find something to lay out over the grass and rest on.

The cowboy smirked. “Genji? So that's yer brother's name.”

Hanzo bristled, rolled his eyes. He spread the blanket in the shade and set his bow and quiver down before sprawling out beside them on his back, relishing the shadows on his skin. The cowboy stretched out beside him, chewing on the end of a new cigar. He stared at Hanzo, not even trying to hide it. Hanzo rolled over to face him so that he could stare back. There was something so youthful, puppy-like in his features. Despite the tattoo on his arm and the patches of stubble along his jaw, he really looked like a kid playing dress-up. Those brown eyes took in every inch of Hanzo's face, but there was nothing judgmental in them. If anything, Hanzo saw admiration in that gaze.

“My name is Hanzo.”

He was shocked that he had said it. It had tumbled out before he could stop himself. 

The cowboy's grin looked like it would split his face in two. “Jesse.”

“Jesse,” Hanzo repeated. He'd never heard a name like it before. Those two syllables were so unusual on his Japanese tongue. _Jesse._ The name suited this stranger. It reminded Hanzo of cool earth under bare feet, or the bite into a crisp cucumber on a sunny summer day, or the cheery laughter of his brother when they had been children playing in the still corridors of the temple at home. Such a bright and robust name. 

And Jesse, too, parroted back at him: “Hanzo.”

Hanzo was glad he had told Jesse his name. The way he said it, in his American drawl, was nice. Gentle, casual, and slow. In Japanese, it was two harsh, staccato syllables. On Jesse's tongue, the “a” seemed rich, viscous, like honey. Almost a pause after the “n” - like he was speaking two words. The rise in tone on the last syllable of “zo” was almost an exclamation.

“Why're you grinnin', Hanzo?”

Hanzo hadn't realized he was. He rolled over onto his stomach and, with one extended index finger, drew some katakana in the dirt.

“What's that?” Jesse asked.

“Just thinking about how I would spell your name in Japanese.” He traced the letters again, pushing his fingertip through the earth deeper. “Ji. E. Shi. Jeshi.”

“That's stupid,” Jesse said. Beneath the katakana, he began to write H A N – but then he hesitated.

Hanzo reached out to finish the last two letters. “I can read and write in English,” he said, “Which I suppose is more than I can say about you.”

“Oh shut up,” Jesse groaned, “Z-O. That's what I was gonna write anyway.”

“Of course," Hanzo said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. 

Jesse, with a huff, slapped the dirt, wiping away the letters they had drawn there. But when Hanzo looked sharply at him, he found Jesse beaming. It was a smile that melted some of the ice around his heart. 


	4. Chapter 4

Hanzo did not even know he had fallen asleep, but he woke some time later with his head a little clearer and his stomach aching for any food. How long had he been out? He had no sense of the passage of time; it could have been a whole day and night, or it could have been the blink of an eye. The sun was on the descent now, but the day was even hotter than it had been before, and his  _jinbei_ was plastered to his skin thanks to a layer of sweat that coated him from brow to toe. Jesse was sitting beside him, his back against the tree trunk. He had picked open a can of peaches with his knife and was eating them loudly, the juices running down his fingers and chin. When Hanzo stretched beside him, groaning as his spine popped, Jesse smiled and offered him the can. “Welcome back, sleepy head,” he teased him.

“How is - ”

“Genji's fine. Well, as fine as he can be, considerin'... I gave him some of the juice and he drank a little, but I think the pain's shuttin' him down a little bit. He probably ain't gona eat or drink much without getting' sick.”

Hanzo was touched that the man had thought of Genji on his own. There were no words to express his gratitude, and so he said nothing. He sat up and began to shovel peaches into his mouth, not even caring how undignified he must look.

“Hanzo,” Jesse said. “Hanzo, Hanzo, Hanzo.”

“Yes?” Hanzo looked up at him expectantly, his mouth full of half-chewed fruit.

“Oh, nothin'. Just sayin' your name. You got peaches back in Japan?” he asked.

Hanzo swallowed. “Of course we do.”

“What about chocolate?”

Hanzo was vaguely aware that chocolate existed, but he had never seen it up close, let alone tasted it. He watched as Jesse unwrapped a bar. Inside, the stuff was dark, almost black, and it looked about as appetizing as a brick. Hanzo's lip curled back and he pulled away. “No thank you,” he said. Eventually, there may come a time out here where he was starved enough to cave in, but he wasn't desperate yet.

“This stuff's fancy. Expensive. A delicacy. Took it outta yer train car. Come on, taste it! You've never had anything like it before!” Jesse urged him, waving the chocolate before his eyes. Hanzo recoiled from it.

Sighing, Jesse broke a bit off the end of the bar and popped it into his mouth. He gave a little moan and stuck his tongue out to show Hanzo how it had melted into a brown sticky puddle. “Ugh!” Hanzo grimaced in disgust. 

“Come on! You'll eat the whole thing after you taste it!” He laughed as he broke another corner off. He pushed it to Hanzo's lips and Hanzo jerked his head away.

Anger flashed in his dark eyes. “Stop it,” he warned Jesse, but apparently his temper no longer had any affect on the cowboy, who just kept trying to wedge the chocolate into his scowling mouth. Hanzo raised a hand to shove him away, but Jesse grabbed his wrist and crawled onto his lap, straddling his hips. “Get off of me, you fool!”

But when his mouth had opened just enough to shout those words, Jesse was able to squeeze the piece of chocolate back onto his tongue. Jesse, triumphant, laughed and laughed and laughed. The chocolate began to melt in Hanzo's mouth, coating his taste buds, and he closed his eyes to relish it. Rich and sugary, a little musky, a little bitter. With his eyes shut, and Jesse nearly in tears on top of him, Hanzo realized that chocolate somehow tasted the way Jesse's laughter sounded. A bold, dulcet baritone of flavor. Warm and sweet. It sent a shiver of pleasure through him. He smiled, the sound and taste becoming one in his mind.

And then Jesse's mouth was on his, and the chocolate taste rolled across the both of their tongues as Jesse grabbed fistfuls of his long, dark hair and pulled him in deeper. Hanzo's eyes flew opened, and all he could see was Jesse's dark skin, flushed pink, freckles just barely visible in the shade. And his eyelashes, feather-soft. Hanzo let his eyes close again, and he fell back onto the blanket, pulling Jesse down on top of him. Jesse's lips left his for just a second, and then another piece of chocolate was pushed to Hanzo's lips, and Jesse's mouth was back on him. The chocolate melted in the shared heat of their kiss. They swept it off each other's tongues, sighing in the bliss of taste and feeling.

Hanzo felt Jesse's hands beginning to roam, and only then did he comprehend what they were doing. He snatched Jesse's hands away, rolling out from beneath him.

For a moment they glared at each other, both breathing hard.

“This is not right,” Hanzo said.

“Felt pretty right to me,” Jesse muttered.

“No,” Hanzo said, “I mean – yes. But no – not with Genji like this...”

“Oh.” Jesse stared down at the chocolate bar in his lap, and he began to fumble with the wrapper, trying to put it back in place. “Well then. When he's safe...”

Both boys avoided each other's eyes as they packed their camp back up. Jesse climbed back onto his horse and offered to carry Genji for a while, and, as protective as Hanzo was of his brother, he did help maneuver Genji up into Jesse's lap. In doing this, their eyes were finally forced to meet. Hanzo looked away quickly, the heat in those narrow brown eyes more than he could bare. Jesse plucked the hat from his head and put it on Hanzo's instead.

“I'd be burned t' Hell already if I was runnin' around with my face in the sun like you've been,” Jesse said, “You take it for a while.”

After Hanzo had mounted his horse, hiding his flushed cheeks with the brim of Jesse's hat, Jesse said there was something he wanted to show Hanzo before they continued. So instead of heading back to the riverbed, they headed a little north, and Hanzo was aware of the land beginning to incline beneath them. He could feel his horse's muscles straining between his thighs. The moment they peaked the hill, Hanzo knew why they had come up, and he scanned the landscape, unable to hide the awe in his eyes.

After a serious drop beneath them, the bleak rocky earth gave way to expanses of prairie. Miles and miles of grass stretched out on all sides, and sprinkled like confetti were thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of brilliant wildflowers. He could not make them out in detail at this distance; they were just flecks of stunning color in the fields – pinks and whites and yellows and violets of every shade. In his youth, he remembered one spring that his father had taken both sons to a place near Mt. Fuji that was famous for the carpet of _shibazakura_ flowers that bloomed all at once, hundreds of acres of pink-violet petals with the majestic cone of Fuji herself in the background. As a boy, the sight had amazed him, but this was different. Unlike the carefully planted and cultivated _shibazakura_ , this was natural, entirely accidental – no human planning had meddled with this growth. The wildness of it, the lack of any pattern to the splashes of color, was one of the most wonderful sights Hanzo had ever seen.

And roaming the grasses was a herd of hairy brown beasts. They were so far away and so impossibly large that at first Hanzo had mistaken them for boulders in the prairie. But they were moving, he noticed. Hanzo recognized that he had seen pictures of these monsters everywhere since coming to America. They were bison. So many he couldn't possibly count them.

“That's where we're headed,” Jesse said.

Hanzo realized, tearing his eyes away from the sights before him, that he was pointing _beyond_ the prairie, where the patches of solitary trees became more and more dense, until, at the foothills of the massive peaks on the horizon, a whole forest grew. “To the mountains?” Hanzo asked.

“We won't climb 'em, don't worry,” Jesse said, “We just gotta get to the base. Around the other side is where Overwatch is.”

“That looks like a long ride,” Hanzo said.

Jesse shook his head. “We're makin' good time. We'll be there... maybe the day after tomorrow? I really think Genji'll make it.” For a moment the two men sat in silence, admiring the view. Then Jesse spoke up again: “I'm real sorry.”

Hanzo nodded. Obviously this whole situation was the fault of Jesse and his gang, but at some point it became difficult to blame him. No. This was their father's fault. If he had never sent them to America, then Genji never would have gotten hurt. And it was the Emperor's fault, too. If he had not stripped them of their identities, he and Genji never would have been sent abroad in the first place. And it was his own fault, as well. Because if he had not fought with Genji last night, if he had let Genji follow him out of the train car, they would both be safe.

Neither of them sure of what to say, Jesse led the way back down the hill. In silence, they returned to the riverbed, and the sight of the earth so scorched by the sun was horrible after a glimpse of the prairie. Hanzo knew they couldn't just throw themselves down a cliff face, but it was frustrating that they had to go this roundabout way.

Jesse could tell Hanzo was unhappy, and so, thinking it would somehow help the situation, he began to talk Hanzo's ears off as they rode on. He introduced Hanzo to his horse, who was named High Noon, but he called her Noon for short. She was a Tennessee Walking Horse, he said, which was a brand new breed of horse, and he showed Hanzo how her gait was different from the other horses. The horse carrying their supplies was called The Duchess by her former rider, he said, and the horse Hanzo was riding was named Baylock, although Jesse said he figured that Hanzo could rename him whatever he wanted.  Hanzo wasn't very responsive, so he changed the subject, and he began to rattle off every remotely interesting story that popped into his head. When Hanzo still didn't show signs of an improved mood, Jesse showed him his gun, which he called Peacekeeper, and Hanzo pulled Storm Bow off his back to show Jesse in return. Jesse whistled in admiration, and Hanzo found himself blushing beneath the brim of Jesse's hat, his mouth suddenly watering for more chocolate. For a long time, as they trudged on horseback up the empty riverbed, Jesse's voice chattering endlessly was the only sound. There didn't even seem to be songbirds around them, or even insects.

It was nearing dusk when they came to a fork in the basin, and Jesse gave a whoop of relief. “This'll be a good place to camp. C'mon.” Jesse picked one of the forks and followed it up an embankment. The horses were so weary that they were dragging their hooves through the dirt as they climbed.

Hanzo didn't see how this place was any better than anywhere else; it must be some cowboy logic that he wasn't familiar with. But he was weak and hungry – his initial anxiety had stolen his appetite away, but the more exhausted his body grew, the less energy he had to worry – and he was relieved to be stopping again, even if he did want to hurry on for Genji's sake. His thighs ached even worse than they had before their first break, and his whole face was caked in dry dust and sweat. And then Hanzo saw for himself why they were stopping here, and in his surprise and relief he nearly fell off the back of his horse.

The two dried up river forks had reunited on this side of the hill, and they were dry no longer. In fact, a great river now stretched away from them, the horizon's red dusky hues shimmering across its rippling waters. This was the tail end of the river. Closest to them, it was rocky and murky, no more than ankle-deep, but looking upstream Hanzo could see it grow in size and depth, snaking across the landscape. Alongside its banks, the grass grew greener, the trees looked less withered and desperate. Yes, Hanzo mentally agreed with Jesse, this would be a good place to camp.

He hopped off his horse and went to help Genji down from Jesse's lap. Hanzo carried his brother to the river's edge. Moving from one pair of arms to the next had woken him, but he could do little more than flutter his eyelids and take shallow, whimpering breaths. When Hanzo tried to cup the water to Genji's lips and encourage him to drink, Genji refused. As Hanzo struggled to make his brother swallow even one mouthful, Jesse behind them worked to set up camp. By the time Hanzo gave up on Genji, Jesse had started a fire and was spread out on a blanket, smoking a cigar with his boots kicked off and his eyes closed.

Hanzo carried Genji to the bedroll, trying to get him as comfortable as possible, snugly cocooning him in the blankets to keep the cool night at bay. There was some talk about hunting for food, but Hanzo's heart wasn't in it – Genji was the only thing on his mind. So instead Jesse dug through the food they had salvaged from the train wreck, reading all the labels of canned fruits and vegetables and meats with scrutiny.

As soon as Genji was settled into the bedroll, Hanzo began peeling off his filthy _jinbei_. He reeked of horse sweat and Genji's blood. He had never wanted a hot bath so badly in his life, but he supposed the river would have to do. After today, he would never take water for granted again. The flesh of his thighs was chaffed and raw from riding, and he was barely able to hobble down to the water's edge. Once submerged, Hanzo pulled the band from his hair and let it float around him, dark as an oil spill across the surface of the river. He combed his fingers through it, letting it get thoroughly soaked.

Jesse watched him from his blanket on the grass, hypnotized. “I've never seen hair so black,” he said to himself in awe.

Hanzo cupped his hands and brought water to his lips, drinking gulp after gulp until his gut ached and he couldn't drink a sip more. He could never remember being so thirsty, and, finally quenched, he felt nearly drunk with relief. "Get over here," he called to Jesse, "You reek."

Jesse only wanted to relax, but he supposed Hanzo had a point. He stripped down to join him in the water, although he cupped a hand over himself, his face red with embarrassment, as he approached.

Hanzo rolled his eyes, “In Japan, we bathe in public. You have no parts I haven't seen before.”

So Jesse sheepishly pulled his hand away, and Hanzo instantly regretted speaking up at all. He was aware, dimly, of how in other places in the world, it was popular to mutilate a newborn's genitals by snipping the foreskin, but he had never seen it before in person, and it was hard not to stare. Even flaccid, the head of Jesse's cock looked swollen and flushed. Hanzo had to peel his eyes away until Jesse had waded in up to his waist. Unaware of the affect his nudity had on the other boy, Jesse began to wet his hair. He felt inadequate like that beside Hanzo, who looked like some sort of river God, with his sleek ebony tresses pooled in the water around him, all back-lit by the brilliant streaks of yellow and pink and lilac across the twilight sky. Meanwhile, Jesse felt that he, himself, looked just like a wet dog.

"So you folks just... sit in bath tubs out on the street or somethin'?" he asked.

Hanzo grunted in disgust. "No, we have bath houses. A big communal tub."

"So you sit in other fellas' dirty water?"

"Why would you do that? You wash before you get in," Hanzo explained. 

"Why would you get in a bath if yer already clean?" 

"You are joking right now?"

Jesse slid up behind him, his arms snaking around Hanzo's hips. “Tell me about your tattoo,” he said, bored with the conversation about bath tubs and bath houses.

It was the last thing that Hanzo had expected Jesse to bring up. He glanced down at his arm, at the inked dragon that coiled from wrist to shoulder, over a background of great storm clouds and bolts of lightning. He brushed a hand over the skin, feeling the subtle bumps of scar tissue beneath his fingertips. How could he explain his dragon to this stranger? “Fist you must tell me about yours.”

Both sets of eyes moved to examine the gang symbol tattooed on Jesse's forearm. Jesse shoved it underwater and backstroked away with a halfhearted smile, as though he had never asked. Hanzo started to follow him, but thought better of it. He had to control himself. So he finished scrubbing the day's grime from his skin as best as he could in the silty river water and crawled out, shivering as he hurried back to the fire.

As the sun finished setting, they sat naked on a blanket together, letting themselves dry by the flames. Jesse made coffee, but he only had one cup on him, so they passed it to one another between sips. For the first time in many hours, Jesse was quiet. By the time Hanzo drained the final dredges from the cup, the night was deep and black, and a fog had settled around the bank, so dense that they could no longer make out the forms of the horses still drinking from the shallow water.

“I just don't want you to think I'm a bad person,” Jesse suddenly said, as though they had been continuing some conversation on for the past few minutes rather than sitting in relative silence.

Hanzo understood what Jesse meant. He let his eyes scan over the tattoo on Jesse's arm before turning his gaze out to the fog. The first of the fireflies had begun to flash their yellow-green lights. He was, perhaps naively, surprised to see them. Ever since childhood, he had been dragged to firefly viewing festivals in the summer. Thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of the glowing eerie lights had captivated his young mind. He knew the legends of _hitodama_ \- eldritch, glowing orbs in the middle of the night that were said to be the spirits of the recently departed. As a child, he had associated those lights with the fireflies and been quietly, privately terrified of them. He knew now how foolish that had been, but he had not imagined they would be here too, in America, this country that so seemed to lack magic.

“I don't think that you're a bad person,” he said. He studied Jesse's arm once more. The skull, the wings, the lock and chains. It was an image designed to frighten and convey danger. But then, he supposed, so was his dragon. He held his own arm out and Jesse took it in his hands; his fingers followed the swirls of blue clouds inked up his bicep. “I understand better than you imagine. Law and civilization are my enemy, as well."

He found himself telling Jesse everything. He explained how, for many centuries, his family had been lords of Hanamura, until the new Emperor had decided that he would be lord of everything. Now suddenly he had to pick a future for himself, as a politician or serving in the national army, or some other unbearable possibility - all because some man with too much power had decided that the village the Shimada clan had ruled over since its founding now belonged to him. He told Jesse how soldiers had come to the castle to take all of their weapons away, including his beloved ancestral sword. He described the destruction of land in order to build a new train system. As soon as the topic had been breached, he could not make himself stop talking. All the while, Jesse sat attentive in silence, with a soft, thoughtful look on his face. "I suppose that one option I have is to become an outlaw, like you. Or do I follow the path my father has set for me?"

Jesse nodded, "Why can't people just understand that a civilized life don't mean nothin', if you lose all o' this."

He waved an arm around at the scene around them. The river shimmering silver in the starlight, the fireflies iridescent in the mist. The trio of horses standing knee-deep in the fog, their tails twitching away clouds of mosquitoes. Somewhere far off, a wolf howled a long, low note that echoed around them, making it hard to tell the animal's distance. After a few heartbeats, a second howl responded, from somewhere to the east - high and wavering. Hanzo stared at Jesse, breathless from his nearness. He wanted to kiss him, and his mouth was within reach, plump and smiling and expectant, but he chose not to, and he didn't know why.

“I should have been a lord and a warrior. What will become of me now?” Hanzo muttered miserably, and he pulled away from Jesse to reach for his dirty old clothes, slipping back into them to get some relief from the chilly night. Jesse, too, began to dress behind him as Hanzo moved across the camp to kneel at Genji's side. He peeled back some bandages on his brother's jaw and found the flesh pussy and swollen. Hanzo hoped the infection didn't spread, but he wasn't sure who to pray to. All the kami he worshiped at home seemed impossibly far away. “I will never forgive myself for this, brother,” he whispered, patting Genji's hair. What if Genji lost a leg? Lost an arm? Would Genji ever be the same again after this accident?

“Just get some sleep, Hanzo,” came Jesse's voice from behind him, “You'll be useless to Genji tomorrow if you don't.”

Hanzo glanced over his shoulder and found Jesse's arms stretched out to him, welcoming him in. Perhaps because his hair was still wet and he was so cold, or maybe because he was as frightened and lost as a child, he crept back to Jesse's side and slipped into his arms. Jesse's bicep pillowed his head, and he drew the blanket around them both. Hanzo could smell the rich earth beneath them, and the coffee and tobacco still on Jesse's breath. Jesse's free hand brushed hair from Hanzo's brow, the scratch of his calloused knuckles across his face so welcome that Hanzo felt like crying in relief. The only reason his eyes stayed dry was because he was asleep before the first tear could be shed.


	5. Chapter 5

Jesse shouting and swearing woke him. Hanzo sat up and instinctively his eyes went to his Storm Bow in the grass beside him, prepared to defend himself and his brother, but then his sleeping brain caught up and he realized there was no danger. Instead, it had suddenly begun to pour, and Jesse, who had stepped out of the cover of the trees to go piss downstream, was drenched. He zipped up his fly, looking comically furious as he stomped back towards the camp with his hair and clothes plastered to him. Noticing Hanzo was awake, he attempted to give a coy smile, but as wet as he was, it just made him look even more ridiculous.

Hanzo hurried to check on Genji, but he was wrapped so securely in the bedroll that he didn't seem to have noticed that it was raining. His face, though, was now whiter than the sheets they had used to bandage him with, and he flesh was clammy and hot. Hanzo suddenly found it hard to breathe around the knot of worry in his chest. “He has a fever...”

“Might be the opium, too,” Jesse suggested, “You hungry? All this bread is gonna get ruined by the rain, so we should eat it while it's still dry.” He was already packing the rest of their supplies up in a hurry.

Hanzo had no appetite, but he still took some bread to fill himself. He didn't feel like he had a full night's sleep, and it was still very dark around them. While he ate, he studied the river, pockmarked by drops of rain. There would be no shelter from the weather as they continued their ride today. Already his skin was wet, and his body would not stop shivering.

Once camp had been broken down and stored back on The Duchess, Jesse swung up onto his mount's back and Hanzo helped him hoist Genji, still wrapped in the bedroll, up into his lap. Jesse took the hat off his own head and set it over Genji's. The rainwater rolled off the brim, away from Genji's exposed, feverish face.

“I could kiss you for that,” Hanzo said, smiling to himself as he climbed up onto Baylock's slick back.

“You should.”

Hanzo guided his horse in close to Jesse's. Because of their own height differences, as well as the different heights of their horses, he had to grab Jesse by the shirt and pull him down a full foot lower to meet his waiting lips. Jesse gave a moan of pleasure against Hanzo's mouth that reverberated through them both; Hanzo could feel the vibrations of it all the way to his bones. He opened his mouth for him, and Jesse's tongue surged forward. The contact of their tongues sent a jolt of electric excitement through Hanzo's nerves, and he jerked away.

Despite the abrupt ending, Jesse was beaming, his chest heaving from the exhilaration. “I can't wait til I can have you,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 

It rained for hours as they followed the river upstream. Somewhere out there, the sun was clearly rising, but all it did was turn the morning from black to gray. Hanzo could see very little of the terrain now, just the pebbled, sandy riverbanks and the swirling, rippling surface of the water. Neither young man spoke, but the silence was comfortable, and they traveled close together. Even louder than the patter of rainfall was their own chattering teeth and the gasping, ragged breaths that Genji occasionally gave.

Hanzo was cold to the bone, and he and his horse shivered in unison. He pitied the animal. Horses could be loyal as dogs, and he had killed its rider and master. Now he was forcing it to trek miles and miles in this horrible rain. He was guilty for this animal's suffering just as guilty as he was for his brother's. His thoughts grew dark again, and to fight them off, he tried to remember the wildflowers, those pops of color reaching for the sun. He wished he was there already. He wished he was anywhere but here. Mostly, though, he wished that he had kissed Jesse last night.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that it took him quite a while to notice that Baylock was acting strangely. The horse had stopped shivering beneath him and was tense all over, every muscle strained. His ears were flicking rapidly in all directions, and he would sometimes stop to suddenly toss his head up, wild eyed, nearly throwing Hanzo off his back each time.

“Jesse...”

“He's always been sensitive,” Jesse said, “You could switch to The Duchess for a while? She's a good lady.”

Hanzo slid from Baylock's back. As soon as he was off, the stallion gave a trumpeting squeal. He rose up onto his hind legs and pawed at the air. Hanzo leaped back to avoid being struck by those flailing hooves. The earth was too wet. His heels slipped in the loose mud and he tumbled backwards, down into the river, as Baylock took off upstream at full gallop. Thankfully the water was shallow, and he was already drenched from the rain, but his pride was wounded by the incident, and he swore loudly at the animal in Japanese as he tried to pull himself up onto the bank.

Jesse watched this all, helpless with Genji in his arms. Before he could move, before he could even decide how to help, there came a terrible sound.

It was like a demon's shriek, louder than gunfire, louder than thunder.

Neither young man had time to react.

Behind them, The Duchess was screaming. Hanzo had never heard a horse make a sound like that before, but it was deafening and horrible. He couldn't tell what was happening, just suddenly she was in a panic, bucking and crying and kicking with all her might. Jesse was drawing his revolver, his eyes wide with horror. And then Hanzo saw it, too. On her back was a cougar, the biggest cat Hanzo had ever seen. Its paws were the size of a man's head, and its claws were sunk into the mare's withers. As the animal fought to get its teeth at the horse's neck, she leaped over Hanzo, into the river. Her body passed only inches over his head. She thrashed in the waters, trying to shake the cougar from her back, and the river turned pink with blood. There was so much of it everywhere, and all the while she continued to bellow in agony.

Jesse fired, and the cat gave a yowl of pain, but only clung deeper into the horse's flesh.

Hanzo, too, grabbed his bow. He barely took time to aim. At the same time as he let his arrow fly, there came a second gunshot.

The whole river ran red with blood.

One of their shots, bullet or arrow, had hit its mark. The cat fell still into the water, its face scarlet. The Duchess dropped to her side, too weak to stand, trying to lift her neck out of the water so that she did not drown.

“God damn it!” Jesse shouted, “Help me get down, Hanzo!”

Hanzo pulled himself up onto land, coated in mud from head to toe, and rushed to take Genji from Jesse's arms. He found himself shaking, from panic and from cold, and Genji's weight was almost too much for him to bare at the moment.

“We lost all our supplies,” Jesse said as he climbed down into the water. Indeed, in all of the horse's thrashing, nearly everything had been emptied from the horse's pack into the current. The blankets still strapped to her back had been torn and stained with blood. He crouched beside her and stroked her face as she gasped for breath. Hanzo could tell, from the expression on Jesse's face, that losing supplies was the least of Jesse's concerns.

“You could've died,” Jesse said, “If Baylock hadn't spooked, if he hadn't knocked you into the river, it coulda been you.”

He pressed the his revolver's muzzle to the mare's temple. Jesse closed his eyes before pulling the trigger. Hanzo winced at the noise.

When Jesse joined him again, he was crying. It was hard to tell from the rainfall, but the whites of his eyes were unmistakably red. “Life's been nothin' but rough since I met you, Hanzo,” he said with a halfhearted grin.

Hanzo scowled. “You blew up my brother. I have very little pity for you.”

“I reckon I deserve every bit o' bad. But she didn't. Poor old girl.”

For a long time they stood in the rain, staring at the horse's body in the river. Then, softly, Jesse said again: “It coulda been you...”

“Jesse,” Hanzo said, “if something happens to me, you must swear to get Genji to your doctor. He must survive.”

Jesse nodded. “I promise, Hanzo. I ain't done much good in my life, but this I won't mess up for nothin'.”

Hanzo grabbed him by the soaked shirt, careful not to crush Genji between them, and he kissed Jesse hard on the mouth. Neither made any effort to deepen the kiss. It was over in just a couple heartbeats, and then they wordlessly agreed to be back on their way. Jesse put Genji up with Hanzo on Noon's back - which Hanzo protested - and he walked. Only Jesse had shoes good for walking, he had argued. Their pace seemed agonizingly slow now, and even when the rain let up, Hanzo couldn't find anything to be optimistic about. He thought of the other passengers, all probably somewhere safe now, and he wondered if this had really been the best idea. If it wasn't for his high temperature, Genji would have felt dead in Hanzo's arms.

Baylock was found far upstream. He probably would have kept running, if his reigns hadn't tangled in low-hanging willow branches. He had laid in the grass, looking resigned to death, when they spotted him. Jesse left Hanzo and Genji up on his horse, and he instead mounted Baylock. In a vain attempt to make up for their lost time, they rode for the next two or three miles at a hard canter. The land began to look more lush the farther they went upstream, and the river itself became bigger and wilder.

Left to brood in silence, Hanzo's mood was truly foul when the clouds finally began to part, letting down some watery sunlight. It wasn't enough to warm them at all, so their wet clothes still clung heavy and uncomfortable to their skin. Even Jesse's mood seemed glum. He hadn't spoken in hours. Though his cigarettes had been ruined in the rain, he kept a mushy, flaccid one between his lips, sucking at the tobacco.

Traumatized by the cougar attack, both horses now startled at everything. Snakes basking twenty feet away would make them halt in their tracks and refuse to take another step. Even though the bank's height was now raised high above the water, a fish leaping was enough to make the horses jump, nearly tossing their riders each time.

Hanzo was relieved when they peeled away from the river, taking a zigzagging path up a grassy slope. When they reached the peak, Hanzo finally saw them – wildflowers, their colors splashed across the grasslands. In other circumstances, he would have been impressed by the lovely sight, but he was cold and soaked and Jesse's sour mood filled him with doubt, so instead all he could think about was how far the mountains looked across the great expanse of greenery.

“If we go a little further upstream,” Jesse said, “There's a bridge, and a road. It goes to a small town. If you wana detour, if you wana get outa your wet clothes, we could - ”

“No,” Hanzo said, “Genji is only getting worse. We must reach Overwatch.”

They shuffled around, Jesse getting back on Noon with Genji cradled in his arms, while Hanzo reluctantly mounted Baylock. He never wanted to get on a horse again for the rest of his life after this. His whole body felt sore and beaten. But he could tell the horses were more at ease here, with no cover for predators to hide behind, and they were able to start across the plains at a quick trot.  


* * *

 

  
The rest of the day, they made great progress. While their clothes were still muddy and their flesh still cold, the land was gentle for the horses to cross. They only made a single stop, letting the horses graze for around an hour. Jesse left Genji with Hanzo and was gone the whole time. As tired as Hanzo was, he was too miserable to nap, and his grumbling stomach kept him awake. He had eaten so little in the past twenty-four hours that the hunger was a sharp and unbearable pain. Thankfully when Jesse returned, wearing the biggest, most triumphant grin, he held a rabbit by the ears.

 “At least we won't starve tonight!” he said, clearly proud of himself.

Hanzo had never eaten rabbit before, but he wouldn't have said no to anything. He was even regretting that they had left so much horse meat back at the river.

As they continued their trek, the wind moving across the grasslands made eerie sounds, soft moans like the breath of a dying man, and Hanzo kept looking down in his arms expecting Genji to be dead. While at first, the wildflowers had distracted Hanzo's mind from such gloomy thoughts, the closer they got to the mountains, the fewer wildflowers grew, and so his mind wandered.

What would he do if Genji died? He couldn't go on without his brother. Home would be torture. He would go insane from the guilt. But he also couldn't stay here. America was not his home, either.

Jesse rode up to his side and leaned in, popping a red flower into his hair. Hanzo scowled and tried to push it away, but Jesse caught his wrist. “Your eyebrows get all screwed up when yer makin' yerself mad,” Jesse said, and he did his best impression of Hanzo deep in thought, drawing his eyebrows down, his lips disappearing into a thin frown.

Hanzo pulled his wrist free, but his face softened, if only for Jesse's sake. “How do you know this place?” he asked, “And why are you so sure that they will help my brother?”

Jesse was quiet for a while. His emotions were always so plain on his features, and Hanzo could tell he was thinking hard about his answer. “This lady I'm takin' you to, her name's Ana Amari,” he said, “She's from Egypt. Y'know, where they're findin' all those pyramids and mummies and treasure? She's an alchemist, but she has some knowledge that other doctor's don't got. She can save people from death's door. Must be half magic, for all I know.”

Hanzo had never met an Egyptian before, and he found it difficult to imagine what she might look like. “So how do you know her?”

“I reckon when I was a kid, my Ma and Pa did business with Overwatch. I was too little to remember. Maybe we bought cattle from 'em or somethin'. All I know is we got tuberculosis. All three of us. My Pa got it first, and he brought it home to us. One day, Gabriel Reyes, one of the men who runs Overwatch, came to finish up some business at my place. He found my Ma and Pa both dead together in bed. I knew my Ma and Pa were dead, but I was so sick I couldn't even do anythin' about it but lie there dyin' myself. I was so scared. And when Reyes showed up, I kinda thought he was the Grim Reaper or somethin', taking me to the afterlife. I was terrified. I was so little, and I was there alone, coughin' up blood, so sick I couldn't breathe. It felt like a horse had kicked me in the lungs. So much blood. It was all I could taste, all I could smell. You got tuberculosis over there in Japan?”

“Not like you have it here. I understand it is quite a serious problem?”

Jesse nodded. “They're buildin' special hospitals for TB an everythin' now. The thing is, Hanzo, when you get it, you die. There ain't no cure. You can have it for a while, and it ain't bad maybe the whole time, but once you get to coughin' up blood, you better go dig your grave. And it's real contagious. Most folks woulda left me there to die, too afraid to catch it. But Reyes wasn't scared at all. Pulled me right on his horse, the way you got Genji there. Funny thing was, his horse was called Reaper. All big and black with a marking on his face like a skull. So at that point, you can imagine, I was sure I was gona die. Thought Death himself was takin' me away. But no, he brought me back to Overwatch. I remember... shucks, I remember like it was yesterday – the ranch's got a bunch o' different buildin's. Miss Amari has her house and fancy alchemy lab separate from the main house, and we pulled up there and saw dozens of horses in front of her place. Most of 'em were painted or had feathers in their braids. I could tell right away they was Indian horses. Reyes carried me in there and there she was, sittin' on the floor with a whole buncha Indians. They was smokin' and talkin' in Indian language. I never knew what tribe. She even had her own little half-Indian baby, just a little thing. She made all the Indian folk leave and got straight to work givin' me medicine. Made me live there in her house and take her medicine every single day for nine months. I was better sooner then that, but she made me keep takin' em. Ended up livin' there for years before I fell in with the Deadlock Gang."

Hanzo realized that while Jesse had passed so much time talking over these past two days, somehow he had been saying nothing of importance. This was the first real insight he was given to Jesse's past, and his character. "Why did you leave?" Hanzo asked him.

Jesse shrugged. "I heard stories every time I went into town. Wasn't much of a gang at the time, just Miss Ashe was some fancy rich man's daughter who got bored and liked raisin' hell. First time I ran into 'em, I joined and never turned back. Never did tell Miss Amari how much she meant to me. She was like my mother. Stricter than hell, sometimes. She could be as mean as a snake. She'd give me one look and I'd behave right quick. But she was smart and had a good heart. Even the Indians respected her. Came to her for medicine all the time, never woulda gone to a doctor otherwise. I don't imagine she'll be glad to see me after the way I left, but she will definitely help you.”

“I hope so,” Hanzo said. 

“No, Hanzo. You ain't understandin' me. I shoulda died. No other doctor in this whole damn world coulda saved me. She does shit that ain't possible.”

Hanzo nodded and hoped that Jesse was right.

 

* * *

 

 

Around dusk, they ran into the river again. It flowed wide as a lake now, its waters lazy and deep. On the other side of the river began a dense forest. Hanzo realized that somehow, the foot of the mountains had sneaked upon them. They were almost at Overwatch, according to Jesse's description yesterday. Genji was almost safe.

Perhaps yesterday, they could have easily crossed the river on horseback, but there was no way they could do that now. The river ran wild from the fresh flood of rainfall, and the animals wouldn't take a step anywhere close to its banks because of how skittish they still were. Jesse said he knew a bridge, so they kept moving on. Their progress was slowed as the sun fell lower and lower towards the horizon. Hanzo almost feared it would be fully dark before they could cross, when he caught a glimpse of the road and its bridge.

“Are we close?” he asked.

“Real close,” Jesse said, “If we camp here, and wake at dawn, then we should be there before noon tomorrow.”

But Hanzo rejected that idea. If they were so close, he argued, then they could just continue through the night, and be there sooner. He didn't need to sleep! In fact, the promise of their journey's end took the pain out of his hunger, and he pushed on ahead with renewed enthusiasm.

“Come on, Hanzo,” Jesse pleaded with him, “This road's gonna be too dangerous to take in the dark. We have to stop!”

Hanzo would hear none of it, though. And while Jesse complained behind him, Hanzo led on, urging Baylock into a canter. They moved deeper into the forest, the dense foliage blocking out the little light that was left. Once the sun had set, not even a sliver of moonlight or starlight was strong enough to break through the canopy of trees. Realizing he could no longer even see the road ahead of him, Hanzo finally admitted defeat. They would have to camp here for the night.

Hanzo was miserable and snapped at Jesse about everything. They had no blankets – how could they sleep? As if it was somehow Jesse's fault that their supplies had been lost or destroyed in the cougar attack. And he got mad when Jesse finally managed to light a damp cigarette instead of first starting the fire. When the fire had been built, after some halfhearted arguing, Hanzo was disgusted and irritated with the barbaric way that Jesse prepared the rabbit. He sat at the edge of their camp, just barely within the fire's reach, frowning at everything, until the smell of the roasting rabbit meat drew him closer. Finally, as he was able to take mouthfuls of dinner and feel some small relief from his hunger, he nestled in against Jesse's side, and the two were friends again.

“You ever had rabbit before?” Jesse asked.

Hanzo, his mouth still full, shook his head.

“You ever slept in the woods before?”

Hanzo smiled and shook his head again.

Jesse would have given anything to have Hanzo making witty banter with him like the night before, but the cougar attack and the day of riding in the rain seemed to have drained him of his spirit. He grabbed a stick from within arm's reach and began to prod at the burning wood, watching it spark and smoke with a solemn expression. "It's almost over," he said, "this has been the longest two days of my whole damn life."

Hanzo let out a long, loud sigh as though he had been holding his breath without even realizing it, and he nodded. "It certainly has been." He reached up, taking the wilted flower from his hair where Jesse had stuck in hours before, and rolled the stem in his fingertips. "What will you do after this? Go back to your gang, I assume?"

"Yeah, I reckon," Jesse said, "Ain't got no place else to go. They're my family. Probably out lookin' for me right this second."

"I wish my own future were so clear," Hanzo sighed, "I assume the railroad or perhaps the school will have contacted my father about the train accident. He must think we are dead. I will have to send him a letter as soon as possible, letting him know about everything that has happened. And then I am not sure. Will he make me continue on to New York by myself? Will he force us to return to Japan?"

"You wanted to go home, didn't you?" Jesse asked, "Maybe he'll think this country's too dangerous for his kids n let you come back."

"I want to go home," Hanzo agreed, "but I don't know that I have a home any longer. Japan is changing so much that I hardly recognize it. If someone had told my ancestors that in the future I would be taught English, shipped overseas for school, forced to give up my swords and martial arts training, I believe they would have killed themselves. According to our culture, it is more honorable to die at your own hand than to give yourself up to the enemies. They would have rather ended our line than see it come down to this. I feel that I am losing my identity."

"So you... don't wana go back to Japan?"

"I don't know what I want."

 

Jesse  laid back on his arms, wincing at the sticks and pebbles that poked at him through his clothes. He stared up overhead, as though admiring the stars, but the canopy was thick enough that not so much as an inch of the sky was visible. They might as well have been indoors. "Tell me about Japan," he said.

"That's too vague. What if I asked you to tell me about being American?" Hanzo asked.

"Naw, Japan's so exotic and all. You've gotta have lots of interestin' stuff to talk about."

"It is not exotic to me. Your country is exotic to me."

Jesse laughed. "Here? Exotic! I can't imagine! You sayin' you don't have squirrels? Or deer?"

Hanzo lay back beside Jesse, turning to look at him in the flickering light of the campfire. Jesse scooted in close to him, until their chests were touching. "We have deer. They are sacred to us."

"Sacred! So you don't kill em and eat em?"

Hanzo grinned. "Absolutely not. In fact, killing them was once punishable by death."

"By death!" Jesse covered his mouth to avoid laughing in Hanzo's face.

"Who knows what will happen to all of our customs now? The Emperor demands to be worshiped like a God. Our whole way of life will be thrown out by political fanatics," Hanzo mumbled, "I never would have dreamed that my father would give up so much of his wealth and power just to suck up to the Emperor. The only good part to this all is that I was never arranged a bride. If I had been born even as little as ten years earlier, I probably would have been forced to marry some cow from the neighboring village. Thanks to the government forcing marriage registration on us, I was spared that humiliation."

Jesse grinned. "I can't imagine being married to you."

Hanzo smirked back at him, "Genji said the same thing. He was happy, too. About not being betrothed. About all of the changes, really. He pretended often that he would have rather been born a peasant's son, because he hated all of the traditions my family forced him to follow, but life without the wealth and servants would have killed him. He liked women, he liked drinking, he liked having fun more than anything else in the world."

"He ain't dead, Hanzo," Jesse said, "You don't gotta talk about him in the past tense. Heck, he'll probably get twice that in America and then some. All the saloons and loose women. He's gonna have the time of his life. Probably won't ever wanna go back to Japan."

It was hard to think of Genji doing anything wild like Hanzo was used to him doing. All he saw in his head, when he thought of his brother, was how mangled his arm had looked. He had a feeling, in the pit of his stomach, that Genji would never use much of his body the same way ever again. But still, Hanzo nodded. He raised the flower to Jesse's face and caressed his lips with the petals, smiling at the way they parted slightly at the touch. "The village I am from, where my family has ruled for generations. It is called Hanamura. _Mura_ is just the Japanese word for village. _Hana_ means flower."

"The Flower Village, huh?" Jesse said, and the wildflower bounced against his lips as he talked.

Hanzo wondered if Jesse could hear his heartbeat. It was clamoring in his chest; he could hardly catch a breath. He brushed the flower down the other man's chin, letting the petals drag across the bulge of his Adam's apple before the handkerchief he wore at his throat stopped any further progress. Jesse held his breath as the flower slid down his skin, and then he raised his hands to take he knot out from his kerchief, exposing more of his neck and the opened collar of his shirt. The flower's path continued across his throat, dipping low between his collar bones. He trembled as it tickled the hairs of his chest. He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, exposing more of his torso, and Hanzo could see the veil of sweat across his clavicle. Hanzo's face was warm from Jesse's hard breathing against his forehead, and his gaze burning with such intensity that Hanzo had to look away, instead watching the path the flower made down his muscles, to a pink, perked nipple. Jesse shuddered, tossing his head back with a sigh. He reached out to grasp Hanzo's wrist, but Hanzo pulled his hand away.

“Just relax,” Hanzo told him, and Jesse squirmed, clearly incapable of relaxing at all in this state. Even in the darkness, Hanzo could see how flushed he was. “In Hanamura, our flowers only bloom for maybe two weeks of the year. But they are breathtaking. The whole village, the shrine, the castle, everything is pink. The flower petals cover everything like snow.”

As he spoke, he drew circles around one of Jesse's nipples with the flower's petals splayed out against his breast. He moved it so softly across his skin, as light as breath, as light as a whisper. And then he dragged it down lower, swirling the flower around the other boy's navel before turning it in his hand, letting just the very tip of the stem dip into the crevice.

Jesse's body arched forward, anxious for more contact, and Hanzo gave him the cruelest smile – no, he wouldn't give him more, that look suggested – he would deny Jesse absolutely. “Hanzo, I - ”

“Shh!” Hanzo snapped the flower up against Jesse's lips, silencing him. Jesse's tongue flicked out, parting the flower's petals provocatively, and the two young men nervously, breathlessly laughed together for a moment before Hanzo returned the wilting thing to Jesse's navel, where it then continued its path lower, through the dark patch of hair that led into his jeans. The bulge between his pant legs was so pronounced that there was no ignoring it, and Jesse lay panting, his eyes pleading like a dog's.

It occurred to Hanzo that he had never in his life had to unzip a zipper, but the contraption looked simple enough. The sound it made in the still night seemed so satisfying and triumphant to his ears.

“They're called _sakura_ – cherry blossom flowers in English. But they don't make edible cherries, like the fruit. I think they're related, though. We do eat the flowers themselves. Usually pickled.” 

He was talking mostly to buy himself time, as the next step was uncertain to him. But then finally he found the courage to grab the dingy fabric of Jesse's underwear and tug them down, just enough so that Jesse sprung free. His cock was swollen and thick, curled up against his stomach, and it looked so _meaty_ and succulent that even though Hanzo had no intention of even touching the thing, he still felt his mouth watering at the idea of how it might taste.

“They bloom all over Japan,” he said, “But Hanamura is one of the most popular spots in the country for _hanami_ – flower viewing.”

He ran the flower up the length of Jesse's cock, watching it tense and quiver beneath the touch, and then he twirled the petals against the head. Jesse reached for him, clinging to his shoulders, and this time Hanzo did not shrug him away. He smiled, taking so much pleasure in just watching the way Jesse suffered.

“People come to Hanamura from all over the country to see the flowers in bloom. It was our favorite time of the year, a giant festival. My father would throw week-long parties at our castle. He would have a theater troupe come in and do private shows in the garden, just for us and his guests, all the most important families. Every meal was a feast, more food than you've ever seen in your life. Genji and I would sneak sake and get as drunk as the adults. And at night, a master would come in to display his best fireworks.”

As he spoke, he continued to caress Jesse with the petals, until beads of fluid were pooling in his slit, making the flower sticky and limp. Jesse breathed Hanzo's name, and those butchered syllables made Hanzo weak; how he loved the man's ridiculous accent! He kept on with just the lightest strokes of the flower, up the shaft, circling the head, tracing the veins. Jesse's thighs trembled as he panted. The touches were delicate, but they broke his whole body out in goosebumps.

“Yer killin' me, Hanzo,” he wheezed, “Quit with the flower stuff!”

“What?” Hanzo asked, smirking, “You asked me to tell you about Japan!”

Jesse gave a miserable laugh that turned into a groan. Every caress of those petals on his hot, throbbing flesh was agony. He was so close to the edge, but being denied what he needed. Soon his body was arching into the flower's touches, and the sight of him in that state had Hanzo hard, too, and aching to feel Jesse's hands on him. It was far too late to ask Jesse for anything, though, because Jesse was so untethered, incapable of anything but shuddering and whimpering at the mercy of the flower's touches.

Hanzo took pity on him then, wrapping his hand around Jesse, smashing the stem against his shaft. He barely had time to close his grip when Jesse climaxed – his whole body convulsing as he shot threads of cum into Hanzo's fist. He was panting ragged, his body falling limp at Hanzo's side. Hanzo peeled his hand away, and he dropped the ruined, cum-coated flower to the grass so he could wipe his hands on Jesse's jeans.

It didn't matter that he was unsatisfied himself, because his head was swimming as he tried to make sense of his racing thoughts. He couldn't believe he had done this. What did it mean? And what did it mean that he wanted more? They shouldn't have done this at all with Genji so close, he chided himself. He felt ashamed. He felt amazing, too. Like he had stolen a glimpse of heaven.

“Hanzo...” Jesse whispered, “I don't know that my opinion matters to you one bit, but for what it's worth, I'd kinda hate to see you go back all the way to Japan.”

Hanzo responded with a scoffing laugh.

“What? I was tryin' t'be sweet to you!”

“I know. It was sweet,” Hanzo said, resting his cheek against Jesse's bare shoulder. He could feel his cool sweat on his skin.

“Well then, why the hell're you laughin'?” Jesse muttered as he stuffed himself back into his pants. Hidden back away, he gave a sigh of happiness and draped his arm over Hanzo's hips, pulling him in closer.

“I don't know. It was sweet. You are sweet.” He pressed his head harder into Jesse, and he could faintly hear the hammer of Jesse's heartbeat in his breast. His chest hairs tickled Hanzo's face. Jesse rubbed his back in soothing circles. Wrapped up in the cowboy like this, Hanzo thought, he had never felt more at home anywhere else in his whole life.


	6. Chapter 6

Hanzo woke chilled from the dew on his skin, and, when he opened his eyes, it took him a moment to remember where he was. The world around him had transformed. A thick mist had risen from the river and flooded the forest. It caught the dawn sun, casting everything in sight with a golden glow. He felt like a trespasser in some glorious afterlife, and the vague outline of trees in the dense pale fog seemed like spirits watching him from a distance.

The fire had died hours ago, and the sticks and brush were all too damp to relight. The morning was cold; the ceiling of green foliage overhead sheltered the forest from direct sun, and it seemed ten degrees cooler than it had out in the grasslands, maybe even more. Even Jesse's body heat wasn't enough; the other man was still sound asleep and shivering beside him.

"Jesse, wake up," he said as he wiggled himself away from Jesse's limbs.

Jesse stirred, reached to pull Hanzo back down against him, but Hanzo was already rising to his feet.

"I am serious, Jesse. Wake up." He nudged Jesse with the toe of his shoe, and Jesse's eyelids finally fluttered opened.

"Did we sleep in too late?" Jesse asked, pawing at his weary eyes.

"Look," Hanzo said, gesturing with his arm at their surroundings.

Jesse dragged himself up to his feet, and as he rubbed his arms, covered in goosebumps, he gazed around and smiled. "Looks like heaven," he said.

Hanzo smiled. "It does."

For a silent moment, the two men stood side-by-side, admiring how otherworldly their surroundings appeared. They could hardly see beyond the perimeter of their little camp from how thick and blinding the mist was.  Both horses, their muscular bodies flecked with shimmering dewdrops, looked like mythical forest creatures with their heads bowed to graze, silhouetted in the harsh glare.

They went off to separate sides of the camp to relieve themselves, although the privacy seemed redundant to Hanzo after last night. It wasn't until afterward, when he was thinking about how hungry he was, that it occurred to him to be worried about his brother.  He hurried to the mound of shadow at the edge of camp that was Genji wrapped in the bedroll.

"Genji," he said, stroking his brother's forehead.

His fever had broken, although Hanzo wasn't certain if that was a good thing. He was pale as a corpse, his flesh icy but sweaty. Hanzo felt his throat for a pulse. He held his own breath, trying to stop his own heartbeat so that he could feel Genji's. The birdsong from around them, countless species all heralding the morning, seemed deafening to his ears. He was aware of Jesse coming up behind him, the big shadow falling across his brother's body. One of Jesse's palms came to rest on his shoulder, and a memory pierced through his thoughts like a blade, just a flash - Jesse reaching for him, clinging to his shoulder, panting in bliss; the red petals of the flower twirling across flushed, swollen, sticky skin.

And then he felt the flutters against his fingertips, just the faintest pulse. He finally released his breath and turned to glance back at Jesse. "He has gotten far worse," he announced. And with that, the wild magic of the morning dissipated. The iridescent fog now seemed more of a hindrance than a beauty; the horses looked slow and clumsy in the cold, instead of majestic.

They wasted no time getting back on the road. Hanzo mounted Baylock and Jesse helped him get Genji up in his lap. Sitting up there once more, his whole body ached, his back tense and sore from shoulders to tailbone. He blew hot breath into his cupped palms and tried to warm Genji's cheeks with them.

"We just follow the road now. It's easy," Jesse said.

The horses seemed slower and more stubborn today, and they both knew it was because they hadn't been fed or rested well enough. Hanzo and Jesse, similarly, felt sluggish. Thanks to the river, they had drinking water, but no time to find or prepare food with Genji as bad as he now was. So Hanzo, without energy, felt barely awake, and he kept seeing things in the mist. Once, he was certain that a figure in the light was Genji, standing there watching from between two distant trees, but Genji was still in his arms. He even glanced down at the face in his chest to double check, as if he had been swapped for a changeling. But when they got closer, the figure startled and he could see, as it ran uphill, that it had actually been an elk. A female, no antlers, but still the height of a man. Another time, the fog closed in around him, so dense and bright, that he lost sight of Jesse's silhouette ahead of him on the road. He gripped Genji closer and kicked his horse into a trot, catching up with him so they rode side-by-side. Still, the mist kept playing with his head. Distorting sounds, so bird calls sounded impossibly close, like they were directly in his ear, or else reverberating around him into noises that sounded almost paranormal. The horses were affected by this as well, their ears spinning in all directions, panting and frantic. But as they day warmed, their surroundings began to clear. Now Hanzo could see the road they followed, a worn path through the tangles of foliage, and as they snaked between the tree trunks, he became aware that they were going gradually uphill, even if all he could see were trees in every direction.

It wasn't long after that when Hanzo first got a feeling they were being followed.

Baylock noticed it first. The horse was already tense from the reduced visibility, but he began to crane his neck to glance behind them every once in a while. Hanzo had grown used to the horse's paranoia, so the first few times he ignored it, but when the horse's behavior continued to grow more frantic, he tried to pay more attention to the forest around them. After all, the horse had proven himself to be clever and observant; he had saved Hanzo's life by alerting them of the cougar attack. And so, when his conversation with Jesse lulled, he would listen hard for anything behind them. Rustles in the leaves, cracking twigs, whatever sound he could pick up on. Nothing. Whoever or whatever was on their trail was an expert at hiding themselves. The only inclination he had that Baylock wasn't afraid unnecessarily was that when he least expected it, he would feel a shot of panic through his back, as if something was watching him.

"Jesse," he whispered, reaching around very slowly to pull the bow from his back, "I think something has been following us for some time now."

Jesse trusted Hanzo enough not to question his rational. "Just keep a hold on Genji. I've got Peacemaker." He grabbed his revolver from its holster and rode with it in his lap, his finger resting loosely on the trigger. Still, Hanzo kept his bow in one hand. He hadn't seen enough of Jesse's shooting to trust whether he was a good aim or not.

When they rounded the next bend of the trail, they saw what had been following them.

Hanzo did not understand how anything could have so silently moved from behind them to in front of them. He was astonished, but not too astonished to have the sense to raise his bow.

It was a woman on horseback. Except, as Hanzo studied her over the point of his drawn arrow, he realized she wasn't a woman at all. As tall as a Japanese woman, perhaps, and with the stunning bone structure of an elegant lady, but she was younger than he and Jesse were, younger even than Genji. She had only just begun to leave her childhood behind. Her skin was dark, darker even than Jesse's suntanned cheeks - nearly brown - and her hair was like his, so black that it looked liquid in the sun. Hanzo was surprised to see that she wore pants; he had not seen a woman in this country wearing anything but a ridiculous dress. Tons of skirts, lots of fabric, completely ungainly things. But she looked attired for the wilderness, or for farm work perhaps. 

"Jesse McCree," she said, and her face lit up with a radiant smile.

"Fareeha!" Jesse said, and he launched off his horse at her. Baylock spooked at the sudden movement, and Hanzo fought for his and Genji's balance while Jesse dragged the girl out of her saddle and into a powerful hug, "I hardly recognized you! Dang, you've gotten tall!"

He kissed her on the cheek and they stood there, holding onto each other, both of them beaming. Even their horses seemed to recognize each other, Noon stepping forward to breathe in the scent of the other mare, who then gave a nicker of pleasure and began to nose at her neck and withers. Hanzo managed to stow his bow away without jostling his brother too much, his heart pounding from the rush of adrenaline after spotting her in the path. He felt awkward. Should he even be watching this? It seemed so intimate. He looked away, trying to regulate his breathing and slow his heart.

"Fareeha, this is Hanzo and Genji. Genji's hurt real bad. He needs to see your Ma in a bad way. I reckon he might be about to die."

Fareeha's face grew quite serious again. "You have a lot of nerve to show up here asking for help after disappearing the way you did."

"I know, Fara, I know. You can scold me proper after he sees your Ma."

She mounted up on her horse with one powerful swing of her leg. Then she walked her horse closer, so she could meet Hanzo's gaze for the first time, studying him with her mouth pursed. Hanzo met her eyes, his expression fierce. As they stared each other down, Jesse watched uncomfortably, until finally it was Fareeha who backed down. "Give him to me. My horse isn't worn out. She can make the rest of the trip at a gallop. You two can follow behind."

The absolute last thing that Hanzo wanted was to trust this stranger with his brother. Genji was so frail in his arms, and there was something brutish and powerful about her, even though she was so young. He looked over at Jesse, who was still grinning up at this girl like an idiot, any trace of hunger or exhaustion totally wiped from his countenance.

"Jesse," she said, opening her arms out.

"Yeah, o'course," Jesse said, obedient as a dog. He moved to help Genji out of Hanzo's lap, but he kept turning around to gawk at Fareeha, his teeth still bared in a massive, goofy smile, "Dang, I just can't believe it. How are you? How is everyone?"

"We'll have time to talk later," she said fondly, "Let's get your friend to safety first."

Hanzo was reluctant to hand Genji off to him, even though over the past few days they had made the same motions more times than he could count. A shift of weight, a positioning of arms. It wasn't even a struggle anymore. But still, he kept his grip around Genji.

"It's okay, Hanzo," Jesse said, "She's probably even stronger than either of us are!"

Fareeha cracked a smile. "Probably?"

Jesse laughed, "You ain't seen me in years, darlin'. Don't be so cocky."

They were clearly old friends, very good ones. Something about the familiarity made Hanzo feel raw inside. _Jesse McCree_ , she had said. He hadn't even known the other boy's last name. What right did he have to feel close to Jesse last night? They were total strangers to each other. And he didn't want to trust his brother's life in the hands of strangers. These people didn't know how skilled Genji had once been as a swordsman before their father had forced them to give the blades up. They didn't know how much his face lit up when something excited him. How much he loved sweets. How still he was such a child at heart.

"I will ride with you," he said, drawing Genji in close to his breast.

"Your horse will not be able to keep up," she said.

"Hanzo, you can trust her," Jesse said, "Go on. Let her take your brother, and we'll catch up."

"I go where he goes," Hanzo said, his lip drawing back in a snarl.

"Hanzo, c'mon. It's okay. Would I let anythin' happen to either of you?"

Hanzo didn't speak, but in his thoughts, he replied - _I don't know you_. This could be a trap. Jesse could be taking them straight into wherever his Deadlock Gang called home. Sold into slavery, perhaps. He saw those poor Chinese immigrants who worked on the railroad. He clenched his jaw, the uncertainty rising in him until he could practically taste it, as vile as stomach acid. If he didn't trust them, though, then what could he do for Genji on his own in this foreign country? Another night out here and Genji would be dead certainly. He reluctantly lowered his brother into Jesse's waiting arms. He had been clutching him close all day, and his absence against him made his chest feel suddenly cold and exposed. 

Jesse passed Genji over to Fareeha. She hoisted him up in front of her easily, as if she lifted things heavier than him on a daily basis. Judging by how toned her arms were, she probably did. "I'll meet you both back at the ranch. We'll head straight to my Mum's. I promise you, Hanzo, I'll get him there."

Without another word, she turned and her horse was off like a rabbit through the trees, not even following the path. The forest was so dense that he and Jesse had decided the risk wasn't worth it, but her horse dived between trees effortlessly, until they couldn't be seen through the dense foliage.

Jesse turned to look up at him before swinging back up onto Noon's back. "It'll be okay, Hanzo. That's Fareeha. Her Ma's the one who is gonna help your brother. But dang, she was knee-high to a grasshopper the last time I saw her. I can't believe how much she's grown. She's gorgeous, ain't she? Half-Egyptian and half-Indian.”

“She is beautiful,” Hanzo agreed, “You two seem close.”

He gave his horse a halfhearted nudge and they began up the path once more. Baylock's weary gait seemed to match his sour mood. He wanted to be with Genji again, in case it was the end for his brother. Would that final, pleading “ _Onii-chan_ ” be the last word Genji ever spoke? The thought made him sick to his stomach. If only he had never left his brother alone on that train...

While he was thinking to himself, Jesse continued to speak: “Me 'n' Fareeha go way back. She was a tiny thing when her Ma took me in. Before I joined the Deadlock Gang, she was like a little sister to me. Sometimes I wonder if I made the right choice, y'know? I don't reckon Miss Amari would be too proud o' me for what I've done.” Only then did he notice how desolate Hanzo looked, and he reached out to rest his hand on Hanzo's arm. “Cheer up, Hanzo. You did yer brother right. He's gonna make it now.”

“I should have been with him!” Hanzo barked.

Jesse jerked away from him, blinking and trying to come up with something to say. “You... you woulda killed yer horse, Hanzo. Fareeha's horse can get there quicker. You made the right choice.”

“No,” Hanzo said, “I should have been with him on the train.”

“What good would you be to him dead, Hanzo?”

“I would be a better corpse than I was ever a brother to him,” Hanzo muttered.

Jesse lunged forward to snap up Baylock's reigns and pull him to a stop. The warmth was gone from his features. His eyes were narrow and angry. “Get up here, Hanzo. Ride with me.”

“No.”

“Yes. C'mon.”

Hanzo pulled the reigns out of Jesse's fist and tried to continue up the path, but Jesse swung Noon around and blocked his way. “Get out of my way!” Hanzo shouted, and his words seemed to echo through the trees. The forest around them fell silent; it seemed all the insects and birds were listening hard to their fight.

“Do you realize what you've done for Genji? You've saved his life. You didn't give up on him. Maybe you ain't perfect, but nobody is. You're a damn good brother.”

“That means so much coming from a man who murdered innocent people just to rob a train!” Hanzo spat, and again he tried to urge his horse forward, tried to maneuver around Jesse, but the other boy was capable of moving with Noon like they shared one mind and one body, and the ease with which he blocked Hanzo again only made Hanzo all the angrier. “Move!”

“Ride. With. Me.”

“Or what? You'll shoot me? Steal my father's money? Is this all an elaborate scheme to rob me?”

“Is that what you think of me?” Jesse asked. 

Hanzo felt himself deflate under the hurt in Jesse's eyes. No. It made no sense. Jesse had countless opportunities to kill him and take everything. He could have done it right in the train. Hanzo sighed. “You know that I do not.”

Jesse sighed, and Hanzo could see the relief in his face, plain as day. “C'mon, Hanzo,” he said, and extended out an arm.

Hanzo slid off his horse and Jesse grabbed him, helping him swing up onto Noon's back behind him. Hanzo wasted no time playing coy. He was emotional and tired and he needed this contact more than ever. He folded his arms around Jesse's waist, pushing his face into the other boy's back. His solid torso, the smell of tobacco and grass on his clothes, and the warmth emanating from him washed Hanzo with comfort.

Jesse put a hand over Hanzo's hands, which were folded around his belly, and gave them an affectionate squeeze. “You've been through a lot. You'll feel better when we get a good meal and good night's sleep in you. You're a good brother. I don't know what you mighta been like in the past, but I know what you did now. And when he wakes up again, you'll have the rest of your life to keep bein' a good brother to him.”

Jesse's words did nothing to improve Hanzo's mood. All he could think about was how badly he wished he had died on that train. But the beat of Jesse's heart, felt faintly through his back against Hanzo's cheek, was soothing, and Hanzo took slow breaths to pace his own pulse with Jesse's. After a moment, Jesse nudged Noon on, and their bodies swayed together with her steps.

“You okay?” Jesse asked.

“Yes. Thank you.”

They continued the ride in silence, the longest span of time so far that Jesse had gone without speaking. Or maybe he was speaking and Hanzo kept missing it? He wasn't falling asleep, exactly, but there were moments when he would close his eyes against Jesse's sweating back and when he opened them again the forest had changed around them. He was starving, he knew, and the lack of energy made it impossible not to give in to those flashes of rest.

“Look, Hanzo,” Jesse eventually said.

It was afternoon and Hanzo was miserably hot now against Jesse. He sat up to peer over the other boy's shoulder. They could see the main house, a large single-story building of sun-bleached wood, just ahead of them on the road. Beneath them, nestled in the curved foot of the mountain, the ranch stretched out far. There was a checkerboard of fenced-off pastures full of horses and cattle. Closest to them, tucked against the mountain, was an orchard of some kind. It was all impressive to Hanzo – not for its size, for Overwatch was not remarkable in its acreage, but because the way it had been laid out reminded him of how towns and villages were arranged back home in Japan. It was common for castles to be built in the mountains, because it gave the lords a tactical advantage against invaders, and it also allowed them to look out and down upon their lands to protect their people and property.

“We have to get to Miss Amari's house, down there,” Jesse said. He pointed, but Hanzo couldn't tell which of the several smaller buildings scattered across the land was the one that he was referring to. He asked if Jesse would stop and let him back onto his own horse. Even though Jesse's closeness was a great comfort to him, he didn't want to ride into the farm wrapped around him like this. The thought of Fareeha's sharp eyes on him made him uncomfortable. He did not want to be judged weak by anyone. 

The last leg of the journey was torture. It was such a short ride, down the road and through the fields, but every step Baylock took made Hanzo feel weaker and weaker. And then, to make things worse, Fareeha appeared again, just as silently and surprisingly as she had the first time, like a ghost stepping out of the forest.

“How's Genji?” Jesse asked her.

“My mum has him,” she answered, her horse falling in beside Jesse's on the trail.

“Will he live?” Hanzo asked.

She turned to him, and he braced himself for hostility, but he realized he must be imagining things, because instead she offered him a lovely smile. “My mother believes so, yes.”

“Will he keep all of his limbs?” Hanzo asked. He recalled how gruesome the flesh had looked, torn from the bone. All the shrapnel. He shuddered.

“That is something you will have to ask her,” she said, “but even if he doesn't, Hanzo, you have saved his life. You and Jesse.”

She turned towards Jesse and her face lost all of its beautiful, womanly features; she grinned, and finally looked her age. “Mum was so mad when I told her you were coming!  You'd better be prepared, Jesse! She and Reyes are going to kick your ass!”

Jesse groaned. “Why'd you have to tell Reyes?”

“Don't worry. Mum won't let him kill you. She wants to kill you herself!”

“I might be worse off than Genji when he's done with me, Hanzo. It was nice knowin' you,” he said. And he reached off his horse, leaning in to take Hanzo's hand and bring it to his lips. He kissed Hanzo's knuckles and flashed him a playful smile. “Remember me fondly?”

Hanzo jerked his hand away, uncomfortable with the display of affection while Fareeha was watching them. “Whatever he does to you, Jesse, you deserve it a hundred fold.”

Fareeha laughed. “He does!”

They finished the ride together, all three of them. Fareeha and Jesse rode together up front, talking nonstop, still excited to see each other. Hanzo hung back, fading in and out of the conversation. He couldn't make sense of it enough to really join in with them – they were sharing a lot of old stories and inside jokes about people he didn't know. He couldn't dislike Fareeha; she had certainly helped save Genji's life. And she was lovely in appearance and countenance. But he missed being alone with Jesse. It was a feeling he couldn't easily make sense of. He should be glad that this was all over, but instead it felt strangely bittersweet. Like the taste of chocolate.


	7. Chapter 7

Hanzo didn't know what had happened. One moment, he was riding Baylock behind Fareeha and Jesse, melting in the heat and worrying about his brother, and the next he was waking up in a bed. A bed! The sheets were moth-eaten and the pillows were too soft for his liking, but he was finally, for the first time in probably a month, feeling well-rested. He was in a homey little room. The walls, the floors, the ceilings – everything was made of wood, and so the whole place had an earthy, rustic smell. Beside the bed, Fareeha sat with his Storm Bow in her hands, turning it carefully to examine it, an expression of open admiration on her face. Outside of the room, Hanzo could hear yelling. Angry yelling, mostly in English but with the occasional Spanish thrown in. His shoulder was tender and swollen; when he tried to roll over onto his side, an eruption of pain made him gasp and grimace. How had he injured himself? He couldn't recall.

Noticing he was awake, Fareeha jumped to her feet and urged him back down, fluffing the pillows beneath his head. “Relax,” she said, “You passed out and fell off your horse. You're lucky you only dislocated your shoulder. You could have broken your back!”

“Where am I?” he asked.

“Overwatch,” she said, “Jesse was by your bedside all night, nearly hysterical. He wouldn't leave you, not even for a second. It was pretty cute. But then Reyes got back home.” She waved her hand at the door to the room, from which came more shouts and swearing. She shook her head, smiling from ear to ear, and set the bow back down on top of the chest at the foot of the bed, where the rest of Hanzo's belongings had been laid out. “This bow is stunning, Hanzo,” she said, “Are you a good shot?”

"The best." Hanzo settled into the pillows, trying to get comfortable despite his right arm. "How long was I asleep?"

"All day and through the night," she answered him, “I'm going to go tell them you're awake." 

Hanzo wasn't sure why he had felt so hostile towards her at first. Or maybe he did know why, but the reason now embarrassed him too much to consider. She opened the door, and the volume of the screaming doubled before she slipped out and closed it again.

Left alone, Hanzo finally noticed how hungry and thirsty he was. There was a pitcher of water on his bedside table, but when he tried to reach for it to pour himself a glass, the agony in his right arm stopped him. Dislocated? It hurt a hell of a lot worse than he had ever imagined a dislocated shoulder might have. How long would it be before he could use it normally again?

He wasn't given much time to think on this, though. The door flung opened, and Jesse launched across the room into his bed. He reached to fling his arms around Hanzo, but froze, looking sheepishly down at Hanzo's bad shoulder.

“It's okay,” Hanzo told him, “Just be careful.”

So Jesse laid on top of him, most of his weight carefully distributed to Hanzo's left side, and he smothered him, squeezing him tight, pushing his face into Hanzo's hair. “I thought you died!” Jesse laughed, “When you fell off the horse. I was sure of it. Got you all the way here, saved your brother, only to lose you? I nearly lost my damn mind. I'm so glad you're okay, Hanzo.”

Hanzo breathed in his smell, filling his lungs with it, and raised his good arm to embrace him. “What happened to your face?” he asked. For the left side of Jesse's face was red and badly swollen, a purple and green bruise already beginning to form over his cheekbone. But before Jesse could answer, two men entered the room. Two real men, not the glorified boys that Hanzo and Jesse both were. One was a white man, fair skinned, his hair blonde and neatly combed, his eyes as blue as a summer sky. The second man was perhaps Latino, as dark as the other was light, his hair just as neatly coiffed, his face as handsome as it was mean. His expression was pure _fury_.

“Thank you for showing my brother and I kindness,” Hanzo said quickly. He would have got down to bow, but Jesse still had him pinned to the mattress, so all he could do was bow his head. “I promise to be out of your home as soon as my brother is well enough, and I will pay you for this inconvenience.”

“Calm down,” the white man said, “Your brother was in bad shape. We'd be murderers if we turned him away. Which, despite the solid beating Jesse just got, I can assure you we aren't. The name's Morrison. Jack Morrison.” He extended a hand, and Hanzo untangled himself from Jesse to reach for it before hesitating. Morrison seemed to understand without being told, so when Hanzo finally took his offered hand, the shake was very gentle so to not jostle Hanzo's shoulder too much.

“Hanzo Shimada,” Hanzo introduced himself, mirroring the Western custom of surname last.

“Nice to meet you.”

The second man looked less welcoming, but Hanzo never balked at open hostility, so he just shoved his hand in the man's direction, too. He was surprised when the man took it straight away, and even more surprised when he was equally careful about his bad shoulder. Even so, his handshake was firm, his palm rough with calluses. “Gabriel Reyes,” he said.

“I have heard Jesse speak a lot about you,” Hanzo said.

“Oh really?” his face darkened and his eyes shifted to the other boy.

“Only good things,” Hanzo added, “He is quite fond of you.”

And Reyes laughed. Hanzo had not been expecting it. His face became even more handsome when he smiled. “Not anymore, hmm, Jesse?”

Jesse gave an embarrassed grin. “Of course I am, Boss. I didn't get anything I didn't deserve.”

“Good boy!” Reyes said, and put his hands on his hips. “Amari has already told us that your brother will have to stay here for the foreseeable future. What the hell happened to him?”

“We were taking a train to New York,” Hanzo said, “I don't know what happened. Someone put dynamite on the tracks to rob the train, I suppose. The explosion was terrible. But I was in another car when it happened.”

“I see. So _someone_ blew up the fucking train? And Jesse, your knight in shining armor over here, just _happened_ to be there to save you both? You sure his Deadlock Gang didn't have anything to do with it?”

Jesse looked embarrassed and lowered his eyes, but before he could deny or agree, Morrison interrupted: “The train accident has been all they've been talking about in town for the past couple of days! Half a dozen dead. Two missing. Estimated nearly three thousand dollars stolen. One of the biggest train robberies in history!”

Hanzo's eyes flashed to Storm Bow's case, which was on the chest at the foot of the bed with the rest of his belongings. Most of the money from that train hadn't been stolen at all, but something stopped him from telling them all this fact. “I still have some money,” he said, “I can pay for my brother's board. And my own stay, of course, if you will have me.”

“We will accept the pay for your brother's stay,” Morrison said, “But as for your board, I think what we'd really benefit from the most is if you'd be willing and able to give us a hand around the place. Normally this time of year we'd start looking to hire someone to help with the seasonal jobs, but if you're willing to work hard, then it'd be convenient for us to use you.”

Hanzo was speechless. He couldn't say no – it was a generous offer – but how much help could he possibly be?

“You ever done this kind of work, kid?” Reyes asked, reading the uncertainty in Hanzo's expression.

“I must be honest with you – no. My father... he was a lord. I... I grew up in a castle. We had many servants. But... But I am strong. I can learn. Jesse can teach me?”

Reyes snorted. “Jesse isn't going to help. He's running back to his gang with his tail between his legs. Aren't you, kid?”

“Oh.” It was a stupid response, but Hanzo could think of nothing better to say. He remembered that Jesse had mentioned returning to his gang, but he supposed that until this moment he had never actually imagined trying to survive in this country without Jesse there beside him. And surprisingly – the realization _hurt._ Worse than his shoulder, worse than his hunger and thirst. There was a large, angry, knotted ball of pain in his chest now where his heart had been just seconds earlier.

“They'll be pissed if I don't go back,” Jesse tried to explain, “They'll comb the whole country for me until they find me.”

“Of course.”

“Get used to this, Hanzo,” Reyes said, “Jesse's an idiot. He thinks settling down in any way is an offense to his spirit, and fuck whatever anyone else feels. Isn't that right?”

“Boss, please - ”

“Oh, don't ' _Boss, please_ ' me, you little - ”

Morrison piped up, interrupting the argument before it could really get started. “I'm going to make breakfast. You must be starving, Hanzo.”

It took Hanzo a heartbeat too long to find his voice. “I-I am. Thank you.”

Jack Morrison grabbed Reyes by the arm and tugged him out of the room. When the door shut behind them, Hanzo's grief was replaced with anger. Anger was the easiest emotion for him. Any time he had feelings he couldn't deal with or couldn't understand, being angry was his default reaction. He snarled at Jesse, his face twice as stern and twice as frightening as Reyes's had been. “So last night, when you said you wanted me to stay in America, was that just your orgasm talking?”

“Hanzo, no. You know better. Come on!” Jesse said. He tried to reach for Hanzo, to calm him with a touch, but Hanzo pulled away from him. Pain shot through his arm, but he disregarded it, turned it into fuel for his fury.

“Well then explain yourself! If your intention was to get me here and abandon me, then why does it matter to you whether I am in America or in Japan or on the damn moon?”

“Abandon you? Hanzo, they're my family. They're gonna be lookin' for me. And some o' them might not be too happy that I left. I owe a lot of folks money. I got people relyin' on me. Ashe really needs me, I'm practically her second-in-command. The gang's my responsibility.”

“So then what did you mean, telling me that I should stay? Were you just babbling nonsense?”

“Hanzo...”

“Ha. I was such a fool,” Hanzo muttered, shaking his head.

“Hanzo, I was thinkin' you can come with me. They'll love you.”

Hanzo threw himself back down on the pillows and drew the blankets up around himself. He wanted to roll away and face the wall, his back to Jesse, but his wounded shoulder prevented it. Instead he started up at the ceiling, studying the dark grains in the wood very closely. “Thank you for helping my brother. I will pay you for your services. Just tell me a price.”

“Hanzo, I don't want a cent of your money,” Jesse said, grabbing the blankets and pulling them back down, “Just talk to me! Just look at me!”

Hanzo did look at him, his nostrils flared, his brows angled sharply. He looked as mean as the dragon on his arm. Jesse recoiled, as if he was going to breathe fire at any second.

“You're so closed-up, Hanzo,” Jesse said, “I can only ever tell when you're mad. But tellin' when you're happy or anythin' else... it's like tryin' to read a book that's still up on the shelf. You laughed at me when you said I should stay. I thought that meant you thought it was stupid. I told you what I want, Hanzo. I want you here. With me. But I need to know what you want.”

It took Hanzo a long moment of hard breathing to get his anger back under control. Still, his expression was all hard edges. “I don't want you to go back to the Deadlock Gang,” he finally said, “I don't want you hurting innocent people. I don't want you risking your life running around out there playing with guns and horses. I want you here. With me. Or not even here. Just with me. Wherever that may be. Which for now, because of Genji, means here.”

Jesse sighed and dropped back onto the bed beside him. He drew the blankets up over both of them, and Hanzo rolled over onto his left side to face him. Jesse lifted his hand to stroke Hanzo's bruised and swollen shoulder very gently. “What if I end up fallin' in love with you?” he asked, “Or what if you end up fallin' in love with me?”

“That is a risk I am willing to take.”

Jesse kissed his forehead, and Hanzo felt happiness wash over him, starting from the place above his eyebrow where Jesse's lips had touched and rolling all the way through him, down to his toes. Those rough cowboy hands began to peel away layers of his clothing, untying the knots that held his shirt together, exposing the dragon's tail that curled over his shoulder, across his breast. Jesse's fingertips roamed up the dragon's scales, starting at Hanzo's wrists and climbing up his arm. The caresses sent electricity through Hanzo; they left him tingling, weak for more. He breathed Jesse's name, and Jesse's mouth went to his chest, his tongue trailing over the swirls of clouds inked into his skin. He wondered if Jesse's lips could feel the furious pounding of his heart.

“I cannot do much with my shoulder like this, Jesse...”

“You don't gotta go anythin'. Just lie back.”

“That's not what I want,” Hanzo said, reaching up with his good arm to cup Jesse's face, his thumb rolling over Jesse's lips, wet from sucking at Hanzo's chest, so plump and tantalizing, even chapped as they were.

Jesse looked away from him, his expression plainly hurt. “Sorry, Hanzo, I thought - ”

“Don't misunderstand,” Hanzo interrupted him, “I meant that I don't want to be... useless like this. I don't want to lie back. This isn't how I've imagined it.”

Jesse smiled at him, and Hanzo was sure it was the most raw, most gentle, and honest, and sweet smile that he had seen the cowboy make. “Well then we'll wait,” he said, “But let me kiss you a bit? Let me touch you?”

Hanzo answered by guiding Jesse's face to his. They wasted no time being uncertain. They kissed hard. Grappling with each other. Panting. Great, desperate sweeps of tongue. No sense of where one's mouth ended and the other's began. Hanzo's lungs filled with Jesse's exhaled breaths, and even as the feverish kisses stole his senses away, he was so vividly aware of that – how every moan and sigh uttered from Jesse's lips into his own was being drawn down into his chest, fueling the beats of his heart. But the kissing wasn't enough. There was a deeper need not being met, no matter how fiercely Jesse's mouth clamped to his own, no matter how salaciously their tongues rolled together, no matter any of their pawing and rutting. Between Hanzo's legs, he ached to be touched, straining against his pants for Jesse's attention. He grabbed Jesse's hand, sliding it down beneath the blankets, and Jesse tugged his pants a little down his thighs. His fingers brushed up the stiff shaft, and Hanzo bucked off the mattress with a hiss, a flash of white-hot pleasure blinding him.

“Careful of yer arm, Sugar,” Jesse purred.

His fingers began to knead at Hanzo's flesh, and Hanzo threw his head back into the pillows. Jesse was encouraged by his reaction; his fist began to pump. Hanzo couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't even see anything beyond Jesse's chocolate-colored eyes. He was swimming in them, lost and helpless in their intensity, but it was wonderful.

Ecstasy.

Jesse laughing. The taste of chocolate. The red flower petals flush against pink sticky skin. Burying his face in Jesse's back. The smell of his sweat and tobacco. The syllables of his own name spoken viscous as honey in that drawl.

Even as he was feeling that this wasn't enough, that they needed to get even closer somehow, that his body would shut down if it didn't get more – those flickering, disjointed memories firing off in his pleasure-addled brain had thrown a hook into his climax and jerked it closer. He was rising off the bed, his back arching, his legs tensing. Jesse's fist was relentless on him, and the bliss was so pure that it hurt. Agony. He bit his bottom lip to stifle the sounds that he felt rising.

And then the pleasure was all too much. He burst into Jesse's palm, teeth clenched to silence himself as he thrashed beneath the other boy's body. Those memories kept flashing behind his eyelids, especially the flower rubbing down Jesse's skin. Its petals sent scarlet flashes through his system. Like fireworks going off up and down his spine. And Jesse's chocolate eyes. His chocolate laugh. The taste of chocolate between their tongues. Dark, rich, cloying... the way his heart felt after the violence of the orgasm was over, and he was left staring up into Jesse's face, his vision a little blurred from the intensity of it all. The whole time, from start to finish, he had never stopped grinning down at Hanzo like an idiot, like it was the most fun he'd ever personally had in his life.

Jesse lifted his hand from the blankets to his mouth. His tongue swept up his palm, over his fingers, between his knuckles, gathering up every drop. The sight made Hanzo dizzy with desire, but he was so spent that the feeling was almost misery. He had to close his eyes.

“Feel any better, Darlin'?” Jesse asked.

Hanzo didn't answer for a long time. He had settled into the pillows and felt like never moving again. But it was strange. His shoulder ached just as badly and was just as stiff. He was still starving and still thirsty – perhaps even more so now. And Genji's well-being and future still weighed heavily on his mind. But somehow... “Yes.”

 

* * *

 

 

Food had been laid out for him, and it was clear that someone had gone out of their way to make him a big welcoming meal, although Morrison and Reyes were nowhere to be seen. Thick and fluffy hotcakes drizzled with maple syrup, slabs of greasy bacon, preserves of peaches, a pot of strong coffee. The smells of food after three days without eating was almost overwhelming enough to make him lose his appetite. Almost, but not quite. He tore into the meal, moaning in satisfaction with every mouthful. Jesse, who sat beside him nibbling from his own plate, urged him to slow down so that he didn't make himself sick. Indeed, once he had stuffed himself, he felt bloated and lazy. He just wanted to sleep for the rest of the day. But first – Genji.

The left the house, stepping out into another blistering day. It was only a short walk downhill to the main stretch of land, but after the three-day trek they had made across the wilderness, even this distance seemed torturous to Hanzo. His thighs were sore. His stomach ached. And even though Jesse insisted on putting his hat on Hanzo's head to give him some shade, the dry heat still had him sweating and missing his bed. He made his mood clear by walking a couple of paces behind Jesse, and by now Jesse could read him enough to not try and close the gap.

Jesse led him to a smaller house nestled in the peach trees. A strange talisman of silvery feathers hung around the entrance. From its chimney rose a dense, foul, purple-black smoke. A pair of cat eyes blinked at them from beneath the porch. Hanzo raised a hand to knock, but Jesse nudged him aside and flung the door opened.

“Miss Amari?” he called out.

They stepped into a room that was more workshop or laboratory than a home. Some sort of half-physicist, half-witch-doctor lived here. Jars of weird specimens, dried herbs, and crushed powders in mortars sat on shelves and tables alongside Bunsen burners, microscopes, and labeled flasks of chemicals. A cauldron sat in the fireplace, releasing a repulsive scent – part flower, part rot. On the walls were animal bones and relics of cultures unknown to Hanzo. Indian? Or perhaps Egyptian? He guessed, but did not know. From a back room, Ana Amari herself emerged. There was no mistaking her, for Fareeha was her spitting image in miniature, although the mother's hair was much longer and graying at the roots. Beneath one eye, she had a tattoo, although Hanzo didn't recognize what the lines and curves of ink might represent. The woman gave off the impression of being like a sword – beautiful, sharp, and extremely dangerous.

“Hanzo. Pleased to meet you,” she said. Her accent was thick, but her voice was lovely. She went to a wash basin to scrub her arms and then crossed the room to shake Hanzo's hand. “I have heard a lot about you.”

“From Genji? Is he awake?”

“No. From Jesse.” He glanced over at Jesse, who was blushing and grinning like a kid, avoiding Hanzo's eyes. She continued, “I'm keeping your brother unconscious for now. It is better that way.”

Hanzo nodded as if he understood, but he really did not.

“Would you like some tea?” she asked. And from a drawer, to Hanzo's utter surprise, she pulled a bag of Uji maccha.

He and Jesse sat at a small table by the window as she prepared the tea. They didn't speak, as Hanzo still felt too awkward in her presence. Instead, he glanced around at the bizarre things that surrounded them. A jar of owl pellets. A glass tank full of live beetles. Sketches tacked to the wall of the layers of flesh, muscle, and nerves inside of a human arm. When she joined them at the table with a tray of three bowls of tea, she studied him with intensity, like he was one of the specimen she kept.

“You were descended from samurai? I imagine you can make tea much better than I,” she said.

Hanzo smirked. “Perhaps. With the right tools. But I'm sure this is fine.” He brought the bowl to his lips and the first sip transported him back home, to his tutor patiently showing him how to use the whisk to properly mix the maccha powder into the hot water. It was so bitter and fragrant. He took a deep breath, trying to keep his homesickness at bay.

Jesse, beside him, spit his tea back out into his bowl, making a face of disgust.

“Your brother is going to lose both of his legs. The infection is too severe,” she said, ignoring Jesse's behavior even though he had done it plainly in her sight, “Don't blame yourself, Hanzo. If you had not acted so quickly, he absolutely would have died.”

The blunt way she delivered the news had Hanzo's head spinning. He set his bowl back down on the table and gripped his knees, an attempt to hide how badly his hands had begun to shake. “Both of his legs? Neither can be saved?” He could not imagine Genji, his wild little brother, being able to live that way. No more climbing up and down buildings to sneak out at night. No more dancing. No more swordplay or martial arts or helping to bare portable shrines during festivals. Would Genji simply live the rest of his life bedridden? Wouldn't it have been better to have simply died?

“I will save as much of the living tissue as I can,” she answered, “His right arm will likely have to be amputated as well.”

His lungs would not fill with air, no matter how deeply he tried to breathe. “What kind of life can a man have with one arm and no legs?” he asked, his voice rising to nearly a shout, “He would have been better dead!”

“Do you really believe that? Death is a better alternative to life with a handicap? ” Amari asked, “Overwatch's blacksmith lost his arm in a terrible accident. He is a genius. He engineered himself a brilliant prosthetic, which my assistant and I were able to fit him with. He still does his job, still takes care of his family.”

“One prosthetic is much different than three!”

“Think of your brother's opinion, and not your own. Would he rather have died? Or do you believe he still has a life ahead of him that he would want to live?”

Hanzo sipped again at his tea, although the liquid did not settle right, instead getting caught at the lump in his chest. He struggled to answer. Genji was always full of life, always so happy and carefree. But never being able to walk again... never being able to use his right arm... His eyes burned, but he was too proud to cry in front of a stranger.

“You should meet him, Hanzo. For a fee, he will enthusiastically make Genji limbs as well, I believe. If you are who you claim to be, then you should easily be able to afford it,” she said.

Hanzo thought about the case full of gold. It would be enough, surely. If not, he would go to his father for more. He would sell his Storm Bow, if he had to. Anything for Genji. “I suppose I can. I must find a way. But what about you? What kind of payment do you expect?”

At this, Amari glanced from Hanzo to Jesse, and her stern mouth softened into a smile. “You brought Jesse back to me. You have already paid a great deal of your debt off. There is only one more thing I ask for, in exchange for my services.”

“Anything.

“Don't make promises without hearing the request first,” she warned him. And she turned to Jesse, who seemed to shrink back to childhood before her, suddenly awkward and shy like a boy wearing man's clothes. “Take care of Jesse's heart. Life has not been easy for him. No amount of money in the world could buy Jesse love, so you possess something of immeasurable value to me. If only you are willing to give it.”

Hanzo set his bowl down on the tabletop and turned to face Jesse, who was as red as an apple, and staring into his mug of tea, trying to avoid both sets of eyes suddenly on him. “I-I swear I didn't put her up to this, Hanzo. She's just tryin' to embarrass me. She's crazy.”

Hanzo felt heat rise to his own cheeks. “We hardly know each other,” he said.

She nodded, her smile unfaltering.

“But... as long as he wishes, I promise. I can take care of his heart.”

Jesse couldn't pull his eyes off his cup, but he was suddenly beaming down at it, shifting anxiously in his seat.

“I know it is a lot to ask. He is very stubborn,” Amari said.

“I've been told I am as well,” Hanzo said.

She nodded. “It won't be easy. You two may fight a lot.”

“Hanzo fights with everyone,” Jesse muttered, but he was still blushing and smiling, no edge to the accusation.

“Good. You deserve it. Perhaps he can teach you some manners. Don't spit your tea out again,” she chided him.

She looked pleased with herself as they finished their tea. She asked Jesse about his time with the Deadlock Gang, but he was very unwilling to provide any information. He did, however, chat freely about the days spent traveling with Hanzo. When his own cup was empty, Hanzo reached over to finish Jesse's as well, supposing that a little bit of Jesse's saliva was the least of his concerns, considering how far back the other boy's tongue had already gone down his throat. Once both cups had been drained, he interrupted their conversation. (Just in time, too – he thought – for Jesse was getting close to the night with the flower incident, and Hanzo wasn't sure he would censor that part out)

“I would like to see my brother,” he said.

“Very well. Come with me.”

They rose from the table, and she led the young men down an adjacent hallway. The rooms here all had electric lights, Hanzo noted. As eldritch as the front room of the house was, the rest was surprisingly modern, and he saw many pieces of new, innovative medical equipment that he had never before seen. He finally saw her as less of a shaman or mad scientist and more of a respectable doctor. At the end of the hall was Genji's room – just a bed where he was laid out. Despite that he was not conscious, and despite the bandages and medicines everywhere, the color had returned to his face. He looked visibly better than he had when Hanzo had passed him to Fareeha much earlier that morning.

There was a young woman in the room with him, close to their age, Hanzo would guess. For a white woman, Hanzo felt she was beautiful – long blond hair drawn up with a band like his own, bright and clever eyes. She had been seated at the desk across the room, writing notes on a file, but when they entered, she rose to shake Hanzo's hand.

“Dr. Ziegler,” she said, “But you can just call me Angela.”

“Doctor?” Hanzo hadn't meant to sound so shocked, but he had never heard of a female doctor before.

“Don't look so surprised,” Amari said, “Ever since the Civil War, America has begun allowing women to study medicine.”

“I'm not American, though,” she said, “Swiss. But I came here to practice medicine. Ana has been an incredible teacher.”

“I am not a fan of performing surgeries,” Amari said with a smirk, “I like to put people back together. Not chop them to pieces. And she knows much more about internal anatomy than I do. She will be imperative to your brother's survival.”

They left Angela with Genji, and Amari walked them back across the ranch to the main house. Hanzo had felt uneasy in her company at first, but he could see that she plainly cared for Jesse, and that warmed him towards her. As they walked, she chided him for smoking cigarettes, for the patch of unshaven hair on his chin, for his posture, for his language – and Hanzo fell a little bit in love with her at every word. Back at the house, Morrison had returned and had ledgers spread across the table, scribbling down numbers with a pencil. A pot was on the fire, and the whole house smelled like roasting meat and vegetables.

“So,” Morrison said, “Have you made your decision yet?”

It took Hanzo a moment to remember what he was talking about. That conversation felt like it had happened days ago, not hours. He glanced over at Jesse, who nodded. “If the offer still stands, then I will stay. I can pull my weight. Anything I don't know how to do, Jesse will show me.”

Morrison smiled over his paperwork and leaned back in the chair, studying both boys in a curious way. “You're in Jesse's old room now. Will you be needing a room of your own, or...?”

“That will be unnecessary,” Hanzo said, and both he and Jesse suddenly looked sheepish in front of Amari and Morrison's sharp eyes.

“Don't expect him to start working right away, Jack,” Amari said, “His shoulder needs to heal first. But he can spend time observing Jesse until he is in better condition.”

Their conversation turned to other matters, regarding the ledgers on the table and numbers that Hanzo did not understand, so Hanzo excused himself. The boys returned to Jesse's room, and Hanzo asked him for a pen and paper.

“What're you gona do?” Jesse asked.

“Write to my father.”

Jesse brought him what he needed and Hanzo sat on the floor, using the chest at the foot of the bed as a table as he began his letter. He would tell his father that they were alive. That they were safe. That Genji was in terrible condition. That he didn't know when they could possibly return. Jesse lay on his stomach on the bed, watching the Japanese characters emerge from the tip of the pen – up and down, right to left. His face was close to Hanzo's, and sometimes Hanzo looked up in mid-sentence to find him deep in thought.

“I don't want you to feel pressured by Miss Amari,” Jesse finally spoke up, after several minutes of this, “To pretend you feel things you don't, I mean. I swear I didn't tell her about what happened between us. But I'll be damned if that woman don't somehow read minds or the future or somethin'.”

Hanzo would have been inclined to agree. “I don't feel pressured at all,” he said, setting the pen down to give Jesse his full attention, “Do you?”

“Well. No. Not if you don't.” Hanzo climbed up onto the bed beside Jesse, who grabbed him, careful of his shoulder, and pulled him in close. Their legs wove together. “This is all goin' mighty fast.”

“It is.”

“But it feels good. Feels right.”

“It does,” Hanzo agreed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note about this chapter - kendo existed back during this time period, but it had a totally different name. For the sake of everyone reading, I just kept it called kendo. It seemed like the easiest way to handle it. And we're getting to the point where there's crazy suspension of disbelief regarding the time period anyway, so SHRUG

It was not easy to settle into life at Overwatch. Hanzo was not used to doing any work outside of his training, and he was also not used to being around so many bold women. The women back at home – his servants, his father's concubines – had been close to him when he was a child, but ever since coming of age, they refused to speak to him at all beyond what custom required. It seemed that they lived in a totally separate world from his own. What did they do all day? Gossip? Sew? He had no idea. Genji, who had flirted endlessly with women since he was old enough to understand, probably knew better than he did. So even if Hanzo had attempted conversations with the women in his home, he would not have known where to start. But at Overwatch those first many days, Hanzo's world was flipped upside down. Unable to work, he was exclusively in the company of women. At first, he had not known how to treat them, and he said very little, but it was impossible not to warm towards them.

 

In the mornings, Morrison, Reyes, and Jesse were up before dawn to start their work around the ranch. Hanzo woke to breakfast with them, and when they left to get busy, he lingered behind to wash dishes. Never before in his life had he washed so much as a single glass. He hated the way his fingertips wrinkled in the water and how dry the harsh soap left his skin. Even scrubbing the grime off dishes was enough to cause flares of pain in his shoulder. He felt useless. His arm was healing far too slowly for his liking, although Amari was generous with pain medication. After cleaning up breakfast, he spent most of each day at her house, by his brother's bedside. Genji was motionless besides the rise and fall of his chest, and it was clear that his mind was elsewhere. There was no signs that he heard Hanzo's voice, no signs of dreams he might be having in his unconsciousness. Hanzo found it hard to even look at his damaged face, until Angela repaired the shattered parts of his jaw with metal plates. Hanzo figured it was the first of many similar repairs to come. 

Amari and Fareeha were just as busy as the men most days, and despite being in their home, he saw little of them except sometimes Fareeha would return and spread out on the floor with textbooks all around her. She would study language, or history, or science, or math, and sometimes at meals Amari would quiz her over what she had learned that day. Because there was no strict schedule to her studies, sometimes it was inevitable that Hanzo, making his way between the two houses, walked in on her, and Fareeha was always eager for a distraction. She was not as emotional as most women he knew; she was clever and intense, and it was easy to forget that she was much younger than he was. He felt ashamed that her closeness with Jesse had sparked jealousy and distrust in him, because she was easy even for him to get along with. Within days he had taught her a dozen phrases in Japanese – many of them bad ones – and the two of them exchanging back and forth always set Jesse off in a huff.

While mother and daughter were out of the house during the day, Angela was his usual companion. She was equally lovely in appearance and character; in another life, perhaps, Hanzo might have fallen for her. She was the most intelligent person – man or woman – whom Hanzo had ever met, and he was in awe of how much she had studied and discovered and accomplished in spite of her age and her gender. She was apparently close family friends with the Overwatch blacksmith, whom Hanzo had yet to meet, although he saw the man's hoard of children everywhere on the farm at all times. In exchange for handling their colds and scraped knees and broken bones, Angela was spoiled by the blacksmith's wife, who gifted her pies and pastries and cookies of all kinds. Hanzo would sit with her, one of them on either side of Genji's bed, and they would share whatever treat that had been sent her way. She would tell him about her plans for Genji's prosthetics, using terminology and sciences that went far over Hanzo's head, but she believed that Genji would go on to lead a fulfilling life after his recovery, and her optimism helped Hanzo reign in his guilt and his grief, which at times were so bad that they gave him nightmares, stole his appetite, and made him want to die. There were moments when, alone at the ranch while everyone else was busy, Hanzo found bottles of whiskey to nurse himself to numbness. This was the only way to push the dark moods away. He made sure to sober up around the time the others returned to the house, and so his habit was never discovered. 

The other female thrust into Hanzo's social circle was the blacksmith's youngest daughter, Brigitte. She was sent to Amari's house as the bearer of Angela's delicious gifts, since she was still too young to help her father in his workshop – despite her best efforts to do so anyway, Angela assured him. The first time Hanzo met her, she was swinging one of Amari's cats around in the hallway outside of Genji's room and singing to herself in Swedish. At the sight of him she froze like a startled deer, and he expected her to flee.

Instead, her face lit up in awe. “Is it true?” she asked him.

“Is what true?”

“Jesse told me that you're a samurai!”

Hanzo laughed; it had been the last thing he expected to hear her say. He did not have the heart to tell her that there were no samurai anymore. That his title, his training, and his ancestry meant nothing. So he lied. Or rather, he told her the truth he wished for. “My ancestors were samurai, as far back as we can recall! But my father is a daimyo. And I will become one, too, after him. Do you know what a daimyo is?”

Brigitte solemnly shook her head.

“That means we are leader of samurai! We were the strongest and bravest warriors! And so we live in a castle, and we protect the people who live on the land that we own.”

Brigitte's mouth hung open in astonishment. “Wow! So are you here on some secret die-meow mission?”

Hanzo laughed again. He couldn't wait to tell Jesse about this. “Yes. Exactly. You've discovered my secret. But you can't tell anyone, okay?”

She nodded up at him, but he watched the excitement drain from her expression. She pushed her face into the cat's tawny fur. “I want to be a samurai when I grow up too,” she told him, “But Jesse told me that a lady can't be a samurai.”

Hanzo crouched down beside her and ruffled the cat's chubby, fluffy stomach. It tried to claw at his wrists. “Well, Jesse doesn't know a single thing about samurai then,” he said, “Women can definitely be samurai! There have been many heroic women samurai, as far back as samurai have ever existed! We honor many of them in festivals and plays and literature.”

“Really?” the girl asked him, her face aglow with excitement once more.

“Really. And you're lucky, because when I become daimyo, I will have the power to make you an official samurai,” he told her.

“Make me one! Make me one!” she cheered.

After that, Brigitte began following Hanzo around the farm like his shadow, and she begged him to teach her everything about being a samurai. For a while, Hanzo was able to use his shoulder as an excuse not to indulge her further, but, as it healed, he could avoid her no longer.

“Go and find long, sturdy sticks for us to use as swords,” he told her one evening, when she caught him in a good mood, “And bring them back to me.”

She scurried off, and Hanzo settled down on the front porch, where Jesse sat smoking on the stairs, his suntanned face damp with perspiration.

“You look tired,” Hanzo said.

“We were branding cattle,” Jesse sighed, “I've been breaking my back all day, all while you sit around looking pretty.”

Hanzo scowled and Jesse grabbed him, pulling him in against his sweaty side, “I'm teasin! Calm down!” He laughed his warm, smoky breath against Hanzo's face, and Hanzo pretended to try and squirm away from him. “Listen, me'n the Boss are headin' into town tomorrow. I was thinkin' you could go with us and pick out some new clothes. You can't be helpin' around here in that.”

He grabbed at the fabric of Hanzo's clothing and pulled at it. Hanzo swatted his hands away. He had spent so many hours arguing with Genji and their father to avoid wearing Western clothes, only to now be told he had to get some anyway. “Sure,” he muttered, “Take away the last bits of my culture I have to cling to.”

“Aw, Hanzo. I know yer sensitive on it, but I didn't mean it that way, I swear. You can keep all yer fancy Asian stuff. You just need something to wear around here, y'know?”

Hanzo took the cigarette from Jesse's mouth and brought it to his own, drawing on it with a sigh.

“So back home, y'all had cigarettes, but you didn't have corn?” Jesse laughed.

“No, no corn. I mean, around the ports you can find it. The Dutch eat it all the time. But I'd personally never had it, no. No coffee, no bread, no beef.”

“You're full o' shit,” Jesse said, “What the hell do you eat over there?”

“Rice. Pickled vegetables and fruits. Seafood. Noodles.”

“It all sounds terrible,” Jesse said shaking his head, and he plucked the cigarette back from Hanzo to take another drag.

“If I knew how to prepare them, I would show you. You would like Japanese food,” Hanzo told him, finally wiggling away from his grasp and feigning to wipe some imagined filth from where Jesse had touched him.

“You don't know how to cook?” Jesse asked.

“We had cooks at home,” Hanzo answered, “I don't think I've ever even been into my own kitchen.”

Jesse barked in laughter. “Little Prince Hanzo, too good to make his own food!” He nudged him in the side. Hanzo elbowed him back, a little less playfully. “Why don't you try to learn, though? Makin' and eatin' food from home could help you feel more... I duno, connected?”

“I wouldn't even know where to start,” Hanzo said.

“Well, you can buy rice all over. The Chinese folk eat it, too. We can get some sent here easy. And... I mean, we got fish and vegetables, y'know?”

“I don't know how to de-bone fish or pickle anything.”

“So write back home! Ask yer dad! I know yer mad at him, but it sounds like he loves you. He'd probably mail you a cookbook if you asked.”

Hanzo was quiet for a moment, watching the puffs of smoke rise from the end of Jesse's cigarette up to the sky. Jesse, tentatively, reached down to rest his hand on top of Hanzo's. “You're right,” Hanzo said, weaving their fingers together, “I could tell him that it will help Genji get better.”

“I'll help you, too, Hanzo.”

Hanzo struggled for a moment with something suitably sentimental to say in response. He wanted to tell Jesse how much he appreciated him, how strongly he felt towards him. But they were interrupted by Brigitte's shouts. She was dashing towards them up the path, her arms full of sticks, some of them twice her height and threatening to slide from his grasp.

Hanzo smirked and rose to his feet, tugging on Jesse's hand, “Come on. You wanted to learn more about Japan, right? Well, I am going to teach you kendo.”

Jesse took the bundle of sticks from Brigitte's tiny arms - although she insisted on carrying one of them to help - and the three of them walked across the ranch to a small paddock beside the stable. Hanzo had Jesse and Brigitte clear the ground of any stones or horse droppings. By the time they had finished, it was close to dusk, vivid pinks and oranges seeping from the horizon, and their shadows fell long and thin and eerie behind them. “This will be our dojo,” Hanzo said.

“What's a doe-joe?” Jesse asked.

“It's where samurai train!” Brigitte exclaimed.

“A dojo is a space for practicing. Not just for samurai,” he corrected her, “This will be a dojo for kendo.”

“Uh...” Jesse muttered, “And what's kendo?”

Hanzo glanced at Brigitte, but when she had no guess he continued, “It is the art of swordsmanship. Literally translated, it means 'the way of the sword'.”

Brigitte squealed in excitement.

“Now, before you enter your dojo, you must take off your shoes and bow.” Hanzo led by example – he kicked off his shoes at the paddock gate and stood with his legs together and his arms at his sides. Then he bowed at the waist.

After Brigitte and Jesse pulled their shoes off, Brigitte went straight into the proper bow. Jesse, however, was not so quick at it.

“No. No, you're not keeping your neck and back aligned!” Hanzo huffed, and he would spend several minutes pushing and prodding Jesse into the correct posture before letting him try again. Over and over, Jesse got it wrong. “Ugh! Don't bend your knees!” He stood behind Jesse, pulling him up straight so that Jesse's back was flattened against his own stomach. Jesse wiggled against him and Hanzo hid a smile in the warm space between his wide shoulders. He ran a finger down Jesse's spine, and he felt Jesse shudder against him.

“Bend at the waist,” Hanzo said, “And if your butt comes back and touches me, I am going to make you keep doing it over again.”

“What if I want my butt to touch you?” Jesse asked in a whisper, so that Brigitte, who was running around the paddock and bowing in all directions, would not overhear.

“ _Yamero!”_ Hanzo hissed at him, and again Jesse shivered.

“I like it when you speak Japanese to me,” he said.

“Focus!” Hanzo snapped, although he was still smiling into Jesse's back, his cheeks flushed. And finally, Jesse bent at the waist, very slowly, careful to keep his feet and hips aligned.

“Good,” Hanzo said, pulling away from him, “Now one more time, without me behind you.”

Jesse got his bow right a second time, and Hanzo led him to the center of the paddock. He called Brigitte over and she scurried to Jesse's side, both her tiny, round, charming face and Jesse's scruffy one turned to watch him with wide eyes.

“Now, in kendo, we would sit to put our armor on. We don't have any armor, but I still want to teach you the proper way to sit,” Hanzo said.

Jesse groaned. “When do we get to play with the swords, Hanzo?”

“In the dojo, you must call me _sensei!_ And you show me respect!” Hanzo snapped back at him, although he was fighting hard to conceal his smile with one of his scowls. “And no talking out of turn! Now, for that, you'll go first.”

Again, Hanzo demonstrated. He brought his left leg back and lowered himself down onto his left knee before drawing his right leg back as well. Then he sunk down, sitting on his legs. “This position is called _seiza.”_

He spent what felt like a lifetime teaching Jesse and Brigitte how to sit. Neither of them ever seemed to get it. Brigitte always turned her feet in too much, putting too much weight on her heels, although he was forgiving with her because of her age. Jesse never seemed even close to the right position; he complained it was uncomfortable and claimed that his ankles were going to break.

Realizing how poorly this was going, Hanzo let them take a break to play outside the dojo, although he warned them he would resume right where they left off next time. Jesse chased Brigitte through the nearby pasture, waving one of the sticks at her like he wanted to strike her. She ran shrieking and would sometimes spin around to whack his stick with her own before racing off again. Hanzo knelt in the grass to watch them play. Jesse was clumsy with his makeshift kendo stick at best, but it did nothing to reduce Hanzo's affection.

After the sun had set and the fields were shrouded in twilight, Jesse and Brigitte settled in the grass beside Hanzo to catch fireflies in their cupped hands. Hanzo told them stories of the firefly festivals in Japan, and how his father had fireflies bred each year to release during the festival to ensure the night was a spectacle. By the end of the story, Brigitte had fallen asleep face-down in the grass.

“I don't think I'm cut out for this kendo stuff, Sensei,” Jesse said.

“You'd better get used to it, unless you want to break her heart. She can't learn without a partner.”

Jesse lowered his voice to a whisper, in case Brigitte was still awake. “I like you teachin' me Japanese stuff. It gets me all turned on.”

Hanzo laughed and rolled his eyes.

“I'm serious!” Jesse said, “What was that word? The one you shouted at me?”

“ _Yamero._ ”

“Yah... meadow? Huh?”

“ _Yamero._ It means 'stop'.”

Jesse smirked. “It was sexy.”

“Tch.”

Jesse smiled to himself and went quiet, absentmindedly digging up blades of grass with his fingertips. For a while, the only sounds were the crickets all around them. Then Jesse asked, very solemnly, “How do you say 'I love you' in Japanese.”

Hanzo considered the words for a very long time. He felt Jesse tense beside him; he wondered if it was in anticipation or regret. I love you. He saw the implications of those words strung together that way. He understood their significance, felt their weight settle upon his heart. And yet he could think of no way to translate them, not without losing meaning.

“We do not,” he finally said.

Jesse settled beside him, his eyes dropping to his dirty fingernails. Neither of them spoke for a while. He fiddled with his belt buckle. Hanzo hated seeing him look so deflated. He felt a protective tug at his heart. He wanted his Jesse to always be smiling. _His Jesse._

“In Japanese, there is a direct translation, I suppose - _aishiteru -_ but we never say that. Never. It would sound ridiculous to a Japanese person. _Daisuki_ is perhaps a closer translation, but again isn't exact. It's more like saying 'I really like you a lot.' It is significant to say to someone, but compared to saying 'I love you' in English, it just seems to have less of an impact,” he explained.

“So what do you say?”

“Like I said, we don't. I've never really thought about it before. We don't talk about our feelings very much. Especially not love.”

“You still feel it though, right?”

Hanzo laughed. “What? Do you think that we just – Oh, Jesse. Of course. Of course we do.” If Jesse still hadn't looked so hurt, Hanzo might have been offended, but instead he just pitied the poor boy. “But I think, perhaps, 'I love you' in English would have to do.”

He felt terrible. He knew this had been Jesse's attempt at romance. Perhaps he should have lied?

Jesse fell back into the grass and Hanzo stretched out beside him. Overhead, the sky was a vast sparkling dome, like the fireflies they had been catching were thrown up against a backdrop of dark iridescence. The constellations above him were the same as the ones he saw back home. Maybe if he compared their precise positioning, he would have found differences, but he still felt comforted by the sight. Especially Draco. He brought his fingers to the tattoo on his arm.

“Jesse, I want to tell you a secret,” he said, “but you must promise to tell no one.”

“Of course,” Jesse said, rolling onto his side to face him.

“And please – do not laugh at me. I know this is unbelievable. I will sound crazy to you. But it is something I feel with my whole heart.” He shifted onto his own side, so that Jesse's face was inches from his own. Jesse was no longer pouting; he looked very serious.

“My family was able to acquire so much wealth, so much power, because in battle, my ancestors could summon dragons to devastate their enemies.” He paused, expecting Jesse to interrupt him with laughter, but Jesse still looked so solemn. He continued, “My father has never done it. He has not had to, as he inherited everything from his father. And Genji and I have never been able to do it, either. We have always been told that in the height of battle, when things are most dire, our dragon guardians will be born from the desperation and strength of our spirits. Jesse... the new Emperor has made weapons illegal. There are no more wars to be fought under his rule, as he has stripped all power from samurai, and now the daimyo are nothing but his politicians. I will never summon my dragon, Jesse. And that haunts me. I feel incomplete. I feel my fate has been stolen from me.”

He had never spoken these fears to anyone, not even to his brother. Jesse leaned in, pressing their foreheads together. “I'm sorry,” he said. That was all. And Hanzo felt relief wash over him. No jokes. No judgment.

Jesse's mouth was on his, and sometimes when Jesse kissed him, Hanzo was struck by weakness, but this time when their tongues rolled together, it was a surge of energy and power that Hanzo felt instead. The world went silent around them, the crickets fading to white noise, until all he could hear was the hammering of his own heart in his chest. Jesse moaned against him, his lips pulling at Hanzo's with more and more fervor, until Hanzo grabbed him by the shoulders and pried him away.

“Jesse, the girl is asleep right over there,” Hanzo scolded him, “Keep your tongue to yourself!”

Jesse groaned, wiping spit from his chin with the back of a hand. “I bet yer dragon'd be nicer to me than you are.”

Hanzo rolled his eyes and stood up, brushing the dirt from his clothes.

“Where're you goin'?” Jesse asked.

“We need to take Brigitte home,” Hanzo said, “It's getting late.”

“I'll carry her back myself, so you don't gotta strain yer precious shoulder. You know I'm waitin' pretty impatiently for it to get better,” he said, winking up at Hanzo.

As Jesse got to his feet and stooped to scoop Brigitte up into his arms, Hanzo tested the movement in his shoulder. It felt pretty much back to normal, although out of practice. Physically, there was nothing stopping him. But he decided to keep quiet about it. He wanted Jesse, wanted him in every possible way, but first he knew he'd have to address his feelings. There was no doubt in his heart how he felt about Jesse, and maybe in that moment he should have just said it – _I love you –_ but his mind was fraught with uncertainties. Was it really possible for them to never break each other's hearts? How could he have made a promise like that to Ana, when he didn't even know what their futures had in store? He made his way back up to the house without another word to Jesse, and every step between them nailed more doubt into his thoughts.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real question for the future - do you guys like more sex scenes, or fewer sex scenes?

Leaving Overwatch the next morning filled Hanzo with anxiety; it was far too soon to be heading out into the wilderness again. But Jesse showed him that the wagon was well-stocked with canteens of clean water, and they had so many crates of fresh and preserved fruits from the orchard, cans of condensed milk and cream, wheels of cheese, and barrels of butter to sell in town that even if they ended up stranded, they'd have enough food to survive for many weeks. Other things had been loaded up into the wagon - The blacksmith had made a variety of weapons of astonishing quality, pistols and rifles and revolvers made so ornate that they were practically works of art, packed together with some equally impressive farming tools, all of which would be taken to sell at the hardware store in town. Hanzo spent some time silently studying the workmanship – he had yet to meet the blacksmith himself, but he knew that his brother's future lay in the man's hands.

The wagon would be pulled by the largest horses Hanzo had ever seen. In fact, he wasn't sure that he'd ever seen any creature so large in person before. He was aware that in parts of the world he had never visited, creatures like elephants and giraffes existed, but it was hard to believe that they could be larger than these beasts. At their withers, each was taller than Hanzo, and when they raised their vast heads, they loomed over him so high that he could not have reached to stroke their noses if he had tried. One of the pair was none other than Reaper himself, Reyes's own beloved horse. Hanzo did not need to be introduced to recognize the animal. Just as Jesse had described him, the stallion was as black as calligrapher's ink, with a skull-like white face that gave him a frightening appearance.

Hanzo sat up front besides Reyes, and he was stunned when Jesse crawled into the back to curl up and nap among the cargo. He had spent very little time with Reyes, and certainly no time alone with him. Morrison was a child at heart and very easy to get along with, even if he did tend to be overly-serious when it came to the ranch work. Reyes, however, was unpredictable and moody. Some nights at dinner he was all jokes, exchanging banter with Jesse, making the whole house feel lively. Other nights he passed through the house like a shadow, his eyes dark and dangerous. Even in his best of moods, Hanzo tried to avoid him. He did not want to anger the man and test his own welcome at Overwatch. The land might have been owned legally by Morrison, but there was no doubt which of the men had the most control.

For the first stretch of the ride, the only sounds were the birdsong from the trees, Jesse's soft snoring, and the wagon wheels rattling along on the dusty roads. The whole world was washed in gray, milky, early sunlight, but dawn progressed stubbornly with every mile driven, until the sky burned brilliant oranges and reds. Hanzo watched the sun creep higher into the clouds and clung to the very end of his side of the bench, as far from Reyes as possible. The silence between man and boy seemed to turn every second into an hour.

Then Reyes cleared his throat. “I think you owe me something for all of my hospitality.”

Hanzo swallowed. He avoided glancing over at the man, instead staring out at the landscape. Outside of the well-irrigated boundaries of Overwatch, this side of the mountain was more barren. Dry patches of grass tried to grow between the expanses of rock. They had left the last of the trees behind them, and now it was just stony hills stretching out towards the horizon.

“Don't you agree?” Reyes asked, elbowing him playfully. He wore a smirk on his face that Hanzo couldn't easily read; he was either being cruel, or genuinely joking.

“Of course,” Hanzo said, “Is there something you have in mind?”

Reyes grinned. “Yeah. There is something I want that only you can give me.”

“What is that?” Hanzo asked. He refused to appear intimidated, if that was what Reyes was trying to do.  
  
“The truth.” 

“What?” 

“You heard me. I want the truth. About the train wreck. I'm not an idiot.”

Hanzo bristled. He had forgotten that he had glossed over the details of that night and of how he and Jesse had met. Of course Reyes hadn't forgotten, though. “Are you accusing me of lying?” he asked.

“Maybe you didn't lie, but you omitted the truth,” Reyes said, “Tell me. You owe me. Jesse was responsible for the explosion, wasn't he? He didn't just happen to be in the right place at the right time to rescue you.”

Hanzo glanced over his shoulder, at Jesse spread out and snoring on a sack of wheat, his hat pulled low to keep the sun out of his face. In his sleep, his expression looked troubled. “You're right,” he admitted. He didn't want to betray Jesse this way, but he couldn't avoid this conversation. “His gang put dynamite on the train tracks. My brother and I were in a hotel car that marked us as very rich, very tempting targets. My father has always loved to flaunt his wealth. No one else on the train should have been hurt, only us, but I think someone detonated the explosion too early. And the passengers... many of them were armed. There was a fight. A lot of lives were lost.”

“That's what I thought,” Reyes said, and he spat off the side of the wagon to emphasize his opinion of the matter.

“He idolizes you,” Hanzo said, “More so than Morrison. More so than Amari, even, I believe. Please don't let this alter your relationship with him.”

“Why do you defend him?” Reyes asked,  “After all he's done. You don't even know the half of it.”

“If he is willing to change, who am I to say he cannot?” Hanzo snarled back at him.

Reyes chuckled, noticing he had finally sparked Hanzo's temper, but the sound was joyless. Perhaps even somewhat ominous. “I like you, kid,” he said, “I really do. But what makes you think he's willing to change? What makes you think he won't turn on you just like he turned on me? Just like he's now turned on the Deadlock Gang. I promise you, if they'll take him back, he'll disappear in a second. The kid's a mustang. He's can't be tamed. Give him the smallest window of opportunity, and he'll run right back to the wild.”

Hanzo sat board-stiff in his seat. Something overhead cast a shadow on their wagon and its path. An eagle, circling and circling.

“If you believe this, then why let him come back at all?” Hanzo asked.

Reyes sighed. “Jack asks me the same thing all the damn time. I guess what it comes down to is I'm fond of the kid. Always will be, no matter how much he pisses me off. But I know not to let my guard down and get attached. He won't be domesticated. You know, me and Ana taught him to shoot. I taught him to ride a horse. I taught him to read – Spanish, too. He isn't stupid. But his brain – and his heart – belong out here, in the wild.”

He gestured at the craggy wilderness and Hanzo felt a memory play within his thoughts. Genji calling to him from the back of the train, trying to make him get up and watch the herd of mustang run along the tracks. He could not swallow, could not breathe, around the sudden lump in his throat. If only he had gone to the observation deck with his brother to see them.

“I'm only telling you this because I like you. You're clever. You have manners and dignity. You aren't the kind of brash idiot Jesse normally wastes his time with,” Reyes said.

“Amari seems to disagree with you about him,” Hanzo said.

Reyes gave that same dark laugh again; Hanzo felt it resonate terribly through him, to his bones. “Don't let her fool you. Ana is no better. She puts on a good act, but she's just as wild as he is. That's why she wouldn't marry Fareeha's father. But if you opened Ana's cage even slightly, she'd fly off in a heartbeat. And she'd leave Fareeha behind. I'm surprised she's stayed as long as she has.”

“You truly believe she would leave her daughter?” Hanzo asked. 

“Maybe not when she was little. But now? Yeah.”

Hanzo didn't know what to say. The idea seemed impossible to him. Amari was so invested in Fareeha's education, and mother and daughter seemed so close. Certainly when compared to his relationship with his own father, at the very least. Again, Hanzo looked back to study Jesse. Did he really have such a tentative hold on this cowboy? But then again, they had only known each other a few weeks. Should he really be surprised that he didn't know Jesse as well as he imagined? “With trust and respect and patience,” he said, “Can't a wild horse be tamed?”

“No,” Reyes answered, rolling his eyes, “With trust and all that other optimistic shit, a wild horse can be _ridden_. But the only way to tame a wild horse is to break its spirit.”

“I'm not sure that I agree,” Hanzo said, “So by your logic, Reaper has a broken spirit? High Noon does as well?”

Reyes smirked. This whole conversation seemed so predatory; Hanzo was sure in that moment that he didn't quite like Gabriel Reyes at all. “Reaper is like you, Hanzo. Born in captivity. He's known nothing but this, and it suits him. But if you don't believe me, let's test your theory. The local tribe of Indians sometimes trades mustangs to us. Next time they come through, pick one out. It'll be on me. And if you can somehow tame it without breaking its wild spirit, then perhaps you can tame Jesse as well.”  
  
“I don't want to place a bet like that. This is more serious to me than your game.”

Reyes simply nodded, although he was still grinning like a wolf.

For a long while, there was silence again between them. Hanzo wished that Jesse would wake up to break the tension. But then Reyes cleared his throat to add something else: “For the record, I'm routing for you. When I was your age, being wild like that felt right. I claimed my own life. I made my own happiness. I was free. But every year that goes by, it gets more and more dangerous to be like that. It's not the same out there as it was when I was his age. He doesn't want to hear the truth, because back when I was a kid, we used to get away with all this reckless bullshit and more. But times are different. He's going to end up dead. Or worse, in a prison. And that's the last place he belongs. He's a dumbass, and he needs some sense beaten into him from time to time, but he's a better person than I have ever been. That's why I'm here now. Broken in spirit, but at least I'm not in prison.”

The confession was little solace to Hanzo, but he nodded anyway. How could both Reyes and Amari expect so much from him? His own life was so out of control and uncertain. How could he manage to set Jesse on the right path, when he lacked a path of his own?

But before he could voice his fears to Reyes, they were interrupted. Jesse had woken up, and he pulled himself up from the back of the wagon and onto the seat between them. “Why the long face, Boss?” he asked, stretching out his long legs and yawning, his face turned up to the sun, “I'd say the same to you, Hanzo, but you always kinda look like that.”

Hanzo clenched his teeth into a scowl. “I am stranded in a foreign country with nothing but the clothes on my back while my brother lays on what might be his death bed because of you. Forgive me for not prancing around all day with a ridiculous smile like you do.”

Jesse winced and seemed to sink in on himself. “Sorry, Hanzo.”

An awkwardness settled, heavy and suffocating, on the trio in the wagon seat. After a moment, Jesse tried to take Hanzo's hand, but Hanzo shifted away from him. He didn't know why he did, because at that moment, the thing he craved most was comfort from Jesse.

 

* * *

 

 

It was late afternoon when their wagon rolled into town, the sun low and casting long shadows off all of the buildings. To Hanzo, this seemed a far cry from the paved streets and dapper civilians of San Francisco, a far cry, too, from even the most rural of villages back home. Hanzo's first impression was how _filthy_ the whole town seemed – paddocks of livestock were built everywhere, and from them rose the stench of feces. It was overwhelming; he could barely breathe, barely swallow. A painted banner informed him that they were passing the auction yard, where these animals were sold every morning. Adjacent to the auction yard was the town's train station, a modest building attached to a single platform. A sign on its facade boasted of a restaurant inside, as well as the town's post office. Hanzo made a note of that detail, because in his pocket was a thick letter of many pages, addressed to his father back in Hanamura.

They continued up the muddy road, into the heart of the town. Each building was packed close together up and down both sides of the street, all made of sun-bleached old lumber. He was struck by the lack of greenery – the land here had been dug up and flattened for the construction, with not so much as a garden or tree in sight. It was a small town; he could stand at any point on the main road, turn in every direction, and see where this tiny cluster of civilization faded back into the wilderness. Despite that, it did seem to boast a healthy population. Men were leaning against the fences to study the beasts in the auction yard, or they crowded together at the sides of buildings to smoke and talk, or they lifted sacks and crates into the backs of their own wagons with perspiration on their faces. And Hanzo noticed not a single one of them was well-dressed, as the citizens of San Francisco had been. They wore ragged, unwashed clothes with shit-caked boots and boasted sun-burnt, hairy faces and callused hands. Even from the seat of the wagon, Hanzo saw they had grime under their nails. It amazed and disgusted him. Even laborers back at home would bathe every day. If Jesse had once been this repulsive, at least he had taken to washing himself since Hanzo had been around. He was thankful for that.

Jesse. Hanzo gazed at him from the corner of his eyes. He felt strangely about Jesse ever since the conversation with Reyes. He really just needed to be alone for a moment and clear his head.

“I would like to get off and take something to the post office,” Hanzo said.

“You want me to go with you?” Jesse asked.

Before Hanzo could say anything, Reyes himself had spoken up: “I need your help unloading at the hardware store.” He tugged on the reigns, and the horses came to a stop at the side of the road.

Hanzo hopped down, his shoes sinking into an inch of muck. He grimaced.

“You'll meet us at the dry goods store?” Jesse asked. He seemed almost forlorn to be separated from Hanzo, like an abandoned dog. It occurred to Hanzo that they hadn't been apart in the weeks since they had met. While they may have been away from each other at the ranch, while Jesse worked during the day and Hanzo sat at Genji's bedside, there was always someone keeping Hanzo company. In Ana's home, it was either her or Fareeha or Angela beside him, chatting away. Walking across the land, little Brigitte tended to stalk at his heels. This would be different. For the first time in this foreign land, he would be truly on his own. Relief washed over him. He had missed solitude.

“Of course,” he said, “I will meet you there.”

He turned back in the direction they had come, past the stinking auction yard. Many of these animals he had never seen before up close – goats and hogs and cattle. He stopped at one fence to study the sheep, bleating at each other around a trough. Their bodies were fluffy and white, cloudlike, with numbers painted onto their wool to mark them for sale. But then they would turn away from him, and he saw their backsides were caked in feces. He winced and hurried away, unable to imagine eating such unclean meat.

The awful smell lingered, even when he entered the train station. It was empty but for a single man purchasing tickets from the stationmaster. Hanzo approached the postal clerk, who was in the process of closing for the evening. Unsure of the cost of postage, he had brought all the money he had left from the first currency exchange he had done upon arrival on American soil. The cost to send his mail to San Francisco was reasonable, but to then have it mailed overseas nearly emptied his pockets. Soon, he would have to bring a bar of gold into the town bank and trade it for more dollar bills.

As he stepped from the station, a cool wind blew from the east, bringing with it some fresh air that masked the stink of livestock. Hanzo stood on the stoop and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. Regret echoed through him, as it always did when he was alone with his thoughts. If only he had not been so proud. His father never would have sent him and Genji to America. And then Genji never would have lost his limbs. They never would have met Jesse, and so Hanzo's heart would still be safe from this terrible uncertainty.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw all the horses hitched outside of the buildings up and down the road, and it occurred to him how easy it would be for him to disappear. Just take one of them by the reigns and ride out of town. No one would ever find him. Never again would he worry about Emperor Meiji's foolish politics, or his father's disapproval of him, or if Jesse truly loved him. But where would he go? He now knew he wasn't cut out to live off the land. If only he had brought Storm Bow's case full of gold, then maybe he could take a boat back to Japan. He could become a monk. It seemed like it would be a fulfilling life.

He needed a drink.

There seemed to be more saloons in this town than there even were houses. As he strolled back up the road, he looked around for one that seemed the least busy. It was late enough in the day that men were heading for a good time after a hard day's work, so most of them were alive with piano music and rowdy voices. He entered one finally, finding it less crowded than the rest. A group of men were hovering around the bar, and a woman sat by herself at a table in the corner, but it was otherwise empty. The stillness compared to the neighboring saloons seemed almost eerie, and his entrance drew the attention of every man at the bar.

“Oy, Chinaman!” one of them grunted at him, “the hell do you think you're doin'?”

Hanzo bristled, his eyes turning stony. “I am not Chinese.”

“You look pretty yella to me, boy!” another of the group laughed.

Hanzo's hand clenched into a fist at his side, but he knew better than to get involved with a group of bullies who each had holstered guns at their hips. He opened his mouth, but his retort was interrupted by a voice like honey. “Play nice, boys.”

It was the young woman who had been seated alone across the bar. She had stood up, and now came between Hanzo and the bullies, who had been silenced and calmed by her interference. Hanzo stared at her. While she was beautiful, something about her seemed equally dangerous. He was reminded of the _kitsune_ legends from back home – the trickster fox spirits who took the appearance of young women in order to attract their victims. She had red eyes, he realized. It gave him a chill when they met his own.

“You new around here, kid?” she asked, and the fact that she referred to him as a kid even though she could hardly have been any older than he was rubbed him the wrong way instantly.

“That is none of your concern,” he said.

She smiled. Her teeth were dazzling white against her scarlet lipstick. He realized she was the cleanest person he had seen all day. “Oh, come on, Darlin'. No hard feelin's. My boys are big idiots, got shit fer brains. Let me buy you a drink for your trouble?”

Her accent was similar to Jesse's, but somehow the way she said _darlin'_ just made his skin crawl, as opposed to the way he melted when Jesse said it. “No. Thank you.”

“Aw, I insist,” she said, “Barkeep, a pair o' whiskeys! And make em doubles. On my tab.”

Hanzo wasn't sure why he took the drink. Perhaps because he wanted to show her that he would not be intimidated, or perhaps it was out of pure curiosity to see how the interaction might go. Whatever the reason, he settled down beside her at her table, and he took his first sip of the drink. He had been drinking whiskey in secret, private moments at the ranch for days now, using the burn of cheap liquor to quiet the painful thoughts that tormented him. He found the first sip gritty and hard to drink; it wasn't the same quality as whatever was kept around the ranch, and even that stuff he found unpleasant compared to the smooth, robust alcohol he enjoyed back in Japan. As long as it cleared his thoughts, though, who the hell cared what it tasted like?

“You look like you got a lot on your mind,” she said.

“I do.”

She waited, watching him get deeper in the drink, but when she realized he would not elaborate further, she tried another approach. “So you ain't Chinese. Where're you from?”

“Japan.”

“Why, you wouldn't happen to be one of the Japanese boys missin' from that train robbery, would you?” she asked, her face lighting up with interest.

“I don't know anything about a train robbery,” he lied.

“Oh. So then you wouldn't happen to know anything about this boy I'm lookin' for, would ya? He's about your age. You seen him?” She shuffled through her coat pockets, finally taking out a worn piece of paper folded into a smaller square. She flattened it against the tabletop.

His hand jerked, nearly sloshing whiskey across the paper. He brought the drink to his lips and took a long, long sip, trying to give himself time to process what he was seeing.

It was a photograph of Jesse McCree, staring up at him in sepia. No. Not just a photograph. A wanted poster. _Dead or alive_ , it read in bold, serif print. He had to look away. He really did not know Jesse at all, did he? What crimes had the boy committed, for him to be hunted like an animal this way?

“I don't know him,” he said. It didn't feel like a lie. “Are you a bounty hunter of some sort?”

She smirked, casually tapping her fingernails – painted black – on the tabletop. “Yeah. Somethin' like that.”

“I really should be going. I'm meeting a friend,” he said.

She re-folded the poster and slipped it back into her pocket. “You came in here for a drink, didn't ya? So I know you must've got at least a little time.”

Hanzo took another burning mouthful of liquor, trying to give himself time to come up with a response. Nothing came to him. All he could do was hope she grew bored.

But she didn't grow bored. Not after he downed the last drops of his drink, nor after she slid him her glass to finish. The alcohol singed his senses, but that was what he craved after his heart had grown so heavy, worrying about Reyes and Jesse and Genji and everything in between. He leaned back in his chair in a thick, warm, glowing haze watching like a spectator as the bar filled with patrons. At some point in the evening, a man took seat on the piano bench. Its sharp, clear notes pierced through Hanzo's thoughts, making his head throb, and so he ordered another drink to numb himself further.

He wasn't aware of the passage of time, and he would never be able to recall what he had discussed with his companion. His mind was preoccupied singularly by the wanted poster in her pocket. It kept him pinned in his seat, drew him towards her like a gravitational pull. As long as he sat here, with her, that meant Jesse was safe. As soon as he left, as soon as he lost track of her, there was no telling what might happen.

And he was torn between this desire to protect Jesse and a desire to turn him in himself. He was _furious_ that Jesse had never mentioned being a wanted criminal before. Somehow, the knowledge that Jesse was a bad person was easy to overlook as long as he hadn't known the law was actually out for him. But this changed everything. What future did they have together, if Jesse couldn't walk into a town without putting himself at risk? Was there any future at all, though? Between Reyes's conversation and the revelation from the woman in front of him, Hanzo couldn't help but feel that pursuing anything with Jesse was foolish. How had he convinced himself otherwise? Genji jumped into things, followed his heart, acted reckless. Hanzo, however, did not.

When he realized how much he had been behaving like Genji, a flood of emotions left him trembling and miserable in his chair. So he ordered another drink. And for whatever reason, he found himself telling this woman things he should not. He left out Jesse, left out the train – he wasn't that stupid. But he told her about Genji. How an accident had left him wounded and helpless. How Hanzo did not see how his brother could have a future. How he was overcome with guilt.

The woman's face softened. Did she say anything about his story? Hanzo couldn't remember. What he did remember was her hand reaching across the table, resting on his own. He allowed her fingers to weave between his own, noticing that the honest pity in her face had transformed her from something dangerous and viper-like, into a lovely young woman. Her eyes were as sharp as his, her smiles or scowls were just as sharp, too. And when he found her pulling him to his feet, guiding him away from the table and towards the bodies swaying in front of the piano, he did not protest. He put his hands on her, and she put her hands on him, and they danced together. The drink had made Hanzo's steps too clumsy for the quick, lively music, but she did not seem to mind that she had to lead.

“You're an excellent dancer,” he slurred into her ear.

She laughed. “Took lessons when I was a girl,” she said.

What kind of woman in this backwards country took dancing lessons? He laughed with her. Her body against his was nothing like Jesse's. She was closer to his own height, for one – he didn't have to crane his head to look up at her, even with the heels on her boots. But her body was slender and soft, not hard and firm, and her hands seemed dainty, despite the strength he could feel behind them. On her forearm, a tattoo. His vision was blurred, he couldn't make it out, but the longer he stared, the more the image seemed to rearrange itself. His mind had turned it into Jesse's tattoo, the one on his own forearm. He laughed at the trick his brain had played with him.

 _I bet she would sleep with me,_ he thought. It sounded like a delicious plan, to hurt Jesse the way that wanted poster had hurt him. To cut Jesse's dreams short the way his own had been. But then the faces in the crowd began to transform, and all around him he saw Jesse's hurt face. Hanzo had caused him to hurt, he had drawn that face up from memory, but he couldn't remember why or how. It made him shudder. No. He wouldn't fuck this woman. How could he dream of hurting Jesse? Not in a million years. Not in a million lifetimes.

“I should go,” he said to her.

But he didn't. When he tried to pull away from her, the dancers around them somehow seemed to pack in tighter. He felt the hems of swaying dresses brush against his pant legs. He felt elbows poking at him from all angles, boots trampling over his feet. So he stayed with her, as if for protection from the smelly bodies of all these strangers, and she spoke her sugary voice in his ear, and he wasn't certain how he answered, besides in mumbles.

A splintering crash shocked him sober. A man had been thrown into a table, and the whole thing had shattered beneath his weight. It was one of the bullies from the bar. And a second man, in a ridiculous coonskin hat, had pounced on him. The crowd parted for a heartbeat, and Hanzo watched a fist make contact with the bully's teeth. He watched a spray of blood burst from his lips. And suddenly the crowd was screaming, and another man was waving a chair overhead, and a second of the bullies had dived on the back of the coon-hat man and was trying to strangle him from behind. The chair went sailing over the heads of the crowd, bursting through a window and sending a rain of glass onto the street. Everyone began to yell at once. Never had Hanzo seen such chaos erupt. Every man in the bar seemed to have picked a side, and the women all scurried to the walls, screaming at their men as fist-fights broke out everywhere. Not every woman, though. For Hanzo's dance partner had dived right into the brawl, trying to pull both of her friends from the man in the coonskin-hat.

Hanzo retreated to the corner. This was his chance to leave, but he doubted he could pass unscathed through the flailing bodies, thrown furniture, and thrashing limbs.

As he calculated his path through the saloon, the door was kicked open. The sheriff and a pair of young deputies had burst in, shouting for an end to the fight, and the action froze momentarily except for some final halfhearted exchanged blows. The sheriff scanned the crowd, but when his eyes found Hanzo, his expression changed. “God damn it, look who we got here!”

Hanzo stared back at him, full of fear. He was a deer facing a hunter's notched arrow.

“It's that Japanese fella,” one of the deputies said.

What was happening? Were they looking for him from the train wreck? He had some ridiculous idea that they had already found Jesse, and he was wanted now too, as an accomplice or co-conspirator. 

“Come with us,” the sheriff said, trying to weave through the bodies on the ground.

“No.”

“Yes, boy. We've been looking everywhere for you,” he said.

Realizing he was cornered, Hanzo saw one single way to escape. He flung himself out the broken window, landing in the glass out on the street. He felt the fine edges slice his fingers as he pushed himself up to his feet. The pain wasn't enough to cut through his panic, even as the blood began to trickle down his palms. The town seemed to sway before him, like he was looking at it from beneath the surface of water. Where could he go? He had no sense of direction here, no horse, no home.

“Catch him! Don't let him get away! Someone stop him!” the sheriff was shouting from inside the saloon, and both deputies pushed open the saloon doors, hurrying towards Hanzo in the street.

Hanzo whipped his head around, trying to locate a means of escape, but the movement made him dizzy. His legs trembled under his own weight, and he clung to a post of the next-door building, trying to hold himself upright. Making as quick of a decision as his clumsy mind would allow, he wrapped his arms and legs around the post and shimmied up it, pulling himself onto the roof.

“What the fuck?” one of the boys shouted down on the street.

“Is this feller a cat or something?”

“Hey, get your ass back down here!”

Hanzo scrambled across the roof and leaped onto the side of the saloon, using imperfections in the old lumber as hand and foot-holds to scale its face. People below on the streets were laughing and cheering as he pulled himself onto the saloon's roof.

“Oh, forget this,” one of the deputies groaned, “Somebody get a ladder...”

Hanzo peered over the edge. Many of the saloon's patrons had flooded out into the road and were staring up at the rooftop, trying to look for him. He didn't think he could aim Storm Bow well enough in his current state to be certain he wouldn't hit any innocent bystanders, so he decided it was best to flee until he was a little more in-control of his senses. Embarrassed by the spectacle he had caused, he crawled behind the saloon's giant sign and held his pounding head in his hands.

Jesse McCree. _Wanted Dead or Alive._ The words printed out in the blocky English alphabet were a horrible mantra stuck repeating in his thoughts, echoing off the walls of his skull.


	10. Chapter 10

Sometime later, Hanzo was shaken awake rather violently, like a rag-doll in a giant child's rough grip. He opened his eyes, his head throbbing, his brain sloshing around in his skull. Reyes was crouched beside him, his fists balled in Hanzo's shirt, raising him to eye level. The expression on his face was such pure, dangerous anger that Hanzo felt he was safer down in the street with the sheriff's men.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Reyes growled, and he slapped Hanzo across the face. Hanzo saw the hand and heard the slap before the pain erupted. The blow was so hard that his neck cracked, and he was blinded for a moment, staring up and willing the stars overhead to come back into focus.

“I just had to climb a fucking ladder. Do you hear me? A god damned ladder. The whole fucking town was watching you make a fool of me.”

“M'sorry...” Hanzo raised a hand to touch his burning cheek, finding his fingers caked with his own blood. What had happened? How had he cut himself?

“Fuck. Are you drunk? Are you kidding me? We leave your ass alone and you end up passed out on a roof?”

“There were men... they were chasing me...”

“The sheriff? He had all his men out helping me look for you. You've been missing for hours. Do you even know what time of the night it is? Jesse was convinced you'd been lynched.”

_Jesse... Jesse McCree... wanted dead or alive..._

“You're gonna wish you had been lynched, kid,” Reyes snarled, tossing him back down on the rooftop like a piece of garbage. He rose to his feet, and in the moonlight, his silhouette filled Hanzo with sheer terror. “Are you coming down? Or are you moving in up here? Ha. Should I have Jesse bring up your belongings?”

“Jesse... t-there's a woman looking for Jesse. She's looking for him. I think she's... a bounty hunter?”

“Did you tell her anything?” Reyes asked, leaning back in to grab Hanzo by the shoulder. His fingers dug into Hanzo's muscle so deeply they felt like talons.

“N-no. Nothing.” Despite not being totally in control of his senses then, Hanzo was pretty sure he hadn't brought Jesse up at all. Right? He hadn't said anything? The uncertainty suffocated him.

“But she knows he's here, in town?”

“No,” Hanzo said, more sure this time, “I don't think so.”

Reyes seemed satisfied. He released Hanzo and went to back down the ladder. “Come on, kid,” he grumbled, “Let's get you cleaned up.”

Hanzo wobbled after him, unable to believe he had made it up here safely before, considering how uneasy every step felt now. He braced himself to be shamed by the onlookers in the streets, but it seemed everyone had grown bored waiting for him to come down, and the saloon was full again, the piano music cutting through the quiet night. Reyes grabbed Hanzo by the back of his neck and pulled him up the street towards the inn.

When they opened the door, they were met with the smell of food and whiskey, and Hanzo's stomach lurched. He doubled over, hanging his head between his legs, trying not to vomit on the rug in the entryway. Reyes smacked the back of his head, nearly knocking him to the ground, and he took a few stumbles towards the staircase. Hanzo didn't know how he made it up the steps. His feet seemed to weigh a ton each, and lifting them took all his remaining focus and energy.

At the end of the hall, Reyes pounded on a door. Each thud of his fist on the wood rattled Hanzo, and he felt a wave of nausea again. “Jesse, come get your idiot friend! I have to go apologize to the sheriff!”

The door was flung opened, and Hanzo was throttled by Jesse's powerful arms. He held Hanzo against his chest, swearing at him, calling him names, shaking him. Hanzo stood still for it all, feeling no warmth or affection towards him. In fact, he wanted to be let go. After exhausting himself, Jesse pulled Hanzo into the room and, realizing how drunk he was, tried to get him to drink some water, which Hanzo did. As he stared at Jesse, who was still cursing as he paced the room, all Hanzo could think of was the wanted poster.

“Why did you go off like that?” Jesse asked him, and that question in particular after his barrage of other questions made Hanzo furious.

“How dare you question a single thing that I do or do not do?”

“What?”

“You heard me. How dare you pass judgment on my actions when you have wronged so many people? People have died. Peoples lives have been ruined. _My own_ life is ruined, and Genji's, all because of you. And yet you think you have any right to ask me why I run or why I drink?”

The explosion of anger left Jesse speechless. He sat heavy down on the foot of the bed, staring up at Hanzo with his mouth agape, unable to draw out any words.

“I believe in the possibility of redemption,” Hanzo continued, “I believe you are a good person, and I believe you are better than the life you have chosen. But I swear to you, Jesse, as much as you've come to mean to me, if you go back to that gang again I will hunt you down and kill you and collect your bounty myself. Do you understand me? I will not hesitate.”

Jesse rose to his feet, grabbing Hanzo by the shoulders and trying to guide him to the bed. “Relax, Hanzo. I told you. I ain't goin' back. You're drunker'n hell.”

Hanzo couldn't deny it, but he refused to let Jesse talk him down from his rage as he always managed to do. “Why should I believe you? If these people of Overwatch, these wonderful people, were not enough to change you, then why should I believe that I am?”

Jesse finally got Hanzo on the mattress, and he tried to prop the pillows up behind his back. “You just gotta trust me, Hanzo. I promise you. It's over. Do you trust me?”

And Hanzo remembered Jesse making a similar argument at that train crash, trying to get Hanzo to bring Genji to Overwatch. How his life had changed since then! He released a heavy breath, his muscles releasing, and he sunk back into the pillows. “I trust you,” he admitted.

Jesse sighed, relieved, and he refilled the cup of water in Hanzo's hand from a pitcher on the nightstand. Hanzo drank from it, and Jesse folded his arms around him, and the room began to stop swaying a little bit. Jesse's closeness anchored him.

“You're wrong if you think my conscience is clear,” Jesse told him, “I've done bad things. I have nightmares. And I don't know why, but I'm drawn back. Every time I get pulled back in. But things are different now, Hanzo. You believe in redemption? Well _, you_ are my redemption.”

He sat down on the bed at Hanzo's side and took the cup of water from Hanzo's hands so he could study the cuts on his fingertips. When he hadn't been paying attention to them, there had been no pain, but now the small gashes burned. He winced as Jesse tipped some of the water into his palms and dabbed at them with the hem of his shirt. Hanzo sat there quietly, allowing Jesse to play nurse. He felt somewhat ashamed about his outburst, and even more ashamed that he had let Reyes and the stranger at the bar get him so worked up. Reyes was wrong. Jesse was not a wild animal. Hanzo would prove that to everyone.

“Boss told me he had to go get you off a roof. Was that true?” Jesse asked. Hanzo was too embarrassed to reply, but his silence was enough confirmation to Jesse, who chuckled. “Dang, Hanzo, you're never gonna live this down.”

“I thought men were chasing me,” Hanzo said in explanation.

“And what'd you do to your hands?”

“I don't recall,” Hanzo said honestly. He remembered broken glass at some point during the night but... when? And why? “They're okay, though. Look. The bleeding has stopped already.”

Jesse let go of his hands and Hanzo took the cup of water again, trying to down it, knowing that if he didn't he would be miserable tomorrow. “I don't mind if you wanna be alone for a while. I understand. But please... let me know where you are. Okay?”

Hanzo leaned his head against Jesse's arm, rubbing his cheek against the worn fabric of his shirt. “It was this woman. She kept buying me drinks and wouldn't let me leave. I believe she was trying to lower my inhibitions.”

“Ouch, Hanzo. A couple hours away from me and you got a lady - ”

“Stop.” He was finally feeling more like himself, and the edge to his voice had returned. “She was looking for you. She had your wanted poster. You are an absolute fool, coming in to town like this when - ”

“I ain't wanted in this town, Hanzo. Relax,” Jesse said.

“It doesn't matter! Any one of these people could be bounty hunters!”

Silence settled upon them, Jesse too whipped to protest and Hanzo too tired to continue. Jesse squeezed in beside Hanzo on the small, dingy bed and dropped his head onto Hanzo's chest. He slipped one rough hand up into Hanzo's shirt, his warm fingers trailing over Hanzo's stomach. Hanzo smiled up at the ceiling and stroked Jesse's hair. The tender touches had Jesse sighing in pleasure, his eyelids fluttering closed. With his free hand, Hanzo kept bringing the glass to his lips. The water cut through the fog in his mind. The water _and_ the soft tickle of Jesse's hair against his fingers _and_ the weight of the other boy against his side. Things felt normal again.

“This aint how I imagined today would go.”

“This is not how I imagined my life would go.”

“You really wanted your dad's life, didn't ya?” Jesse asked.

“It was an easy life,” Hanzo said.

“But was it a happy life?”

The question stole Hanzo's breath from his lungs. His heart even seemed to stop beating just for a second, as the words resonated in his thoughts. Was it happy? He lived in the palace in total isolation from the outside world, no friends or companions beyond the servants who crept like shadows through the corridors. He had been jealous of Genji's relationship with their father. From birth, more and more of his culture and identity had been stripped from him. As he had left childhood behind, he had also lost his childhood hope of summoning his spirit dragon. Laying there with Jesse against him, he fought to pick out happy memories from his past. All he could recall were moments from long ago. He and Genji trying to wrestle koi from the pond with their bare hands, or stalking beetles in the gardens with nets made from poles of bamboo, or climbing the cherry trees and pretending to be monkeys. 

He had not been happy in many years.

A different happy memory surfaced, one he had not expected to draw forth – the previous evening, in the paddock with Brigitte and Jesse, trying to teach them each how to sit properly during their impromptu kendo lesson.

And Hanzo felt his eyes fill with tears. He focused on the grain of wood on the ceiling beams overhead, swallowing back the desire to cry. “Jesse, I am sorry. I let Reyes frighten me, and I drank too much, and the bounty hunter...”

Jesse leaned up on his elbows to kiss the tears from beneath Hanzo's eyes. “That's a 'no' then?” he asked.

Hanzo smiled and closed his eyes, feeling Jesse's lips against his eyelashes. “Don't get me wrong. It was a good life,” he said, “But it wasn't this.”

Jesse kissed him.

While everything else seemed a little slower, a little delayed, from the alcohol, the effect that kiss had on him was as instantaneous as ever. He melted back into the pillows, his whole body humming inside with bliss. Jesse's tongue parted his shaking lips. His hands slid up, taking fistfuls of Jesse's hair, and their bodies rolled together across the mattress, the old yellowed sheets tangling around their intertwined legs.

“I want you so bad,” Jesse purred.

Hanzo wanted him, too. He had wanted him that moment with the flower, and the moment with the chocolate, and countless other moments since, but each time there had been so many walls up around his heart. What was the point of having a heart at all, of feeling this way, of wanting so much – if all he ever did was restrain himself?

Their mouths came together and together and together, their panting breaths filling the small room. They licked at each other, sloppy and frantic. Hanzo tasted of whiskey and Jesse tasted of tobacco, but somehow the flavors were lost beneath the heat of it all. If either young man had a complaint, they did not voice it. Could not voice it, because they could hardly keep their mouths apart long enough to utter a single syllable.

This time, when Jesse's hands began peeling apart layers of clothing, Hanzo did not shy away or stop him. In fact, he reached up, untying knots and picking apart buttons. They shed their clothing like a layer of old, unwanted skin, never once pulling their mouths apart. When Jesse's bare skin slid against his own, it was like being shot with a bullet of clarity. The jolt through his system flushed all sluggishness from the alcohol in his bloodstream. He was wide awake, every nerve from head to toe was alert and eager and throbbing for more of Jesse.

At some point, as they rolled and fumbled together, Jesse had ended up beneath Hanzo on the bed. He reached up, pulling Hanzo's hair loose, and it fell like a dark veil around their faces. The scent of his shampoo gave Jesse goosebumps – persimmon, always persimmon. His hands fumbled with the sharp curve of Hanzo's shoulder blades. His back was already slick and dewy with perspiration. Jesse arched up against him, spreading his legs, inviting him closer.

“Relax,” Hanzo urged him. His hands roamed down Jesse's belly, admiring how firmly he was built, his fingertips playing with the coarse hairs. Jesse jerked rigid against him, even these almost innocent of touches had him on edge. And when his touch moved even lower, two fingers easing him open, Jesse thrashed beneath him, nearly leaping off the mattress. “Do you want me to stop?” he asked.

Jesse shook his head. He was shuddering. In anticipation? Discomfort? Hanzo couldn't tell. He didn't think Jesse had ever been so quiet. But then his face stretched into a hazy smile. “What was that word... Stop... that you said... Japanese?”

Hanzo smiled. “ _Yamero?”_

Jesse gave a low groan, sinking deeper into the pillows. “Damn, it turns me on when you speak Japanese.”

Hanzo nearly laughed. Leave it to Jesse to kill the mood! But he leaned in close to Jesse's ear, his hair falling across Jesse's cheek. He could feel Jesse panting against the side of his face. Hanzo growled to him, “ _Sonata ga hoshii..."_

Jesse's nails dug into his skin with each syllable. He threw his head back, and Hanzo scattered kisses across his scruffy, sweaty throat. Gently, at first, his fingers worked into him, but it was difficult to control himself when they had already spent so many nights rutting together and grappling with each other's bodies, but getting nowhere. He wanted this to go further than it ever had. None of this was enough to satisfy him.

Jesse arched against him, sighing and gasping, as Hanzo gave him all that he could with his fingers. His cock pressed stiff into Hanzo's stomach, weeping fluid against Hanzo's skin. “ _Han – zo.”_ Drawn out and languid, the syllables were spoken like two separate words. It was a plea.

Hanzo slipped his fingers out and Jesse raised his hips, anxious to be filled again. "Jesse..."

"Say it to me again," Jesse begged of him, looking up with hungry eyes.

Hanzo leaned over his body, putting his mouth to Jesse's ear once more. Jesse dragged his nails down Hanzo's back, his fingers finding the meat of Hanzo's thighs, drawing him inn so close that Hanzo's turgid cock nudged against his entrance. It sent a convulsion through the pair of them, and Hanzo gasped for him again, " _Sonata ga hoshii... Sonata ga hoshii..."_ They shifted together, a clumsy, awkward, uncertain move from two bodies that have not known each other yet, and Hanzo, with a trembling hand, guided himself inside. Thunder rumbled from Jesse's chest, a moan of ecstasy. Hanzo felt the vibrations of the sound through his own nerves, as though it had come from within himself.

Before he registered the pleasure of this act, his mind first noted the _rightness_ of it. Uniting with Jesse like this was a homecoming. After so long of putting this moment off, after all the nights laying beside each other and wanting this so badly, this was such a delirious, dizzying relief. Why had they waited so long for this?

“Don't go easy on me,” Jesse taunted him.

“I would never.”

Their bodies surged together; Hanzo's hips thrusting, Jesse's hips bucking. Hanzo's staccato movements had Jesse sobbing beneath him, writhing in the sheets. Frantic, furious, they had the bed squealing beneath them. They tried to kiss, their mouths dragging together wet and desperate, but it was impossible to focus on anything but the ecstasy at the same time. 

“ _Hanzo!"_ Jesse apparently had a whole thesaurus of different ways to say Hanzo's name, each more perfect than the last. Hanzo could have listened to him moan it that way on loop until the day he died, and he never would have grown tired. And so he drilled forward into Jesse, finding an angle and a rhythm that had Jesse just spewing those two syllables in a nonsense chant. Those sugary brown eyes had rolled up into the back of his head, and he was just whimpering, “ _Hanzo... han... zo... hanzohanzohan... zo... hanzoha... nzo... hanzo...”_

As the friction built, Hanzo felt himself unraveling, losing himself. There was no room for guilt here. No thoughts of Genji. No memories of Hanamura. No wanted posters. No wild horses. It was just Jesse's hands slipping up his sweating back. Jesse's thighs around his waist. The taste of Jesse's perspiration on his lips. The fur of Jesse's gut brushing across his knuckles as his fist pumped Jesse's cock. And in this absolute bliss of here-and-now, completely void of thoughts and worries, Hanzo felt his climax approaching with the power of that train engine. 

Body crashed against body. Bed crashed against wall. There was so much sweat, and so much skin. Hanzo had lost control. If it wasn't for the searing-hot pleasure and for the burst of Jesse's cum over his fingers, Hanzo would have been certain he was doing this all wrong. It felt primal and carnal. In his whole life of doing things precisely, according to tradition, he had never done anything so primal and carnal and _rapturous_ as this. It was over so fast – his hips were pounding forward at a feverish speed, but after the first drop of cum had been spilled, he could do nothing to make it last even a heartbeat longer. Sinking his teeth into Jesse's wet shoulder to silence the cries that rose in his throat, he flooded Jesse full.

They tumbled apart in a hurry, fleeing from the sensory overload that had pushed their pleasure just to the edge of pain. Both went limp into the pillows, glowing with bliss and sweat, their chests heaving from exertion. Hanzo was in no rush to go back to thinking about anything yet, so he just lay there panting with his eyes closed. Curious, he raised his hand to his mouth, and his tongue collected the taste of Jesse from between the cracks in his fingers. Jesse was less content to lay there still. He rolled over, letting himself go limp against Hanzo's chest. Even though Hanzo was sticky and slick and hot, he draped an arm over Jesse, keeping him close.

He willed Jesse not to talk, not to break this fragile moment. But this was Jesse. Of course he was going to open his big mouth. “That was good, Hanzo,” he said, “Real good. Damn, Hanzo. I lo - ”

Jesse cut himself short. Hanzo knew what had been coming, though. Even without hearing the rest of the sentence, it left him smiling from ear to ear.

 

* * *

 

 

Even though they were forced to rise early the next morning to browse the market, and even though they got back to Overwatch very late that evening, and even though Reyes had made sure Hanzo knew that he had back-breaking ranch work in store for him at dawn, Hanzo called for a second kendo practice. Jesse only had to redo his bow once, and this time both students made an attempt to sit correctly. He sorted through the pile of large branches that Brigitte had found last time, and he picked out the most suitable ones for both of his students. He showed them how to set the stick on their left side while in the seiza position. From there, he demonstrated how to breathe and meditate. They both complained about this step, but he was determined to teach them correctly, the same way he had been taught himself as a child.

Jesse struggled worse than Brigitte did with everything. He was too clumsy to bow right, too big to sit right, and no matter how many deep breaths he took, he couldn't stop wiggling around. But after last night, Hanzo was willing to go easy on him. At least for now. Whenever their eyes met during the lesson, he felt a strange stirring within him, a spark of flame he couldn't hide. And Jesse felt it too; Hanzo could see the wildfire spreading behind his irises. They hadn't discussed what had happened, not even when they woke up still wrapped in each others limbs, but, really, nothing had changed.  So what was the explanation for this sudden heat between them? It drove him crazy.

Despite the distraction, he moved on to teach them one new thing – their first _kamae_.

“ _Kamae_ is a position. We start with _chudan-no-kamae_ , or the _central_ position,” Hanzo said.

He took the position himself – bringing his left foot back just slightly, his heel raised. He held his stick out in front of his body, gripping its base in his left hand, his two smallest fingers wrapped more tightly than the rest. While the branch obviously had no guard, like a real kendo sword would, he put his right hand in place beneath where he imagined the guard would be.

“You look like a real samurai!” Brigitte cheered, and so he taught her first - pulling her right foot forward, shifting her legs apart, moving her weight to the ball of her left foot. Then he adjusted her grip on the stick.

Once she had done it as correctly as he thought her capable of, he told her: “Your homework is to remember how to get into this position without my help.”

Hanzo dismissed her, and she bowed low the way she had been taught before scurrying off to her home, waving the stick in the air in front of her. He watched her, smiling to himself, and Jesse came up behind him, draping an arm over his shoulder. “You don't gotta teach me,” Jesse said, reaching for the cigarettes in his back pocket.

Hanzo slapped his hand off of him, “Oh, yes, I do,” he said, “When she's ready, she'll need an opponent.”

So he repeated the process with Jesse – moving his legs and feet into place, positioning his fingers around the stick, shifting his weight around. Jesse complained the whole time, of course.

Neither of them noticed a pair of figures approach them in the twilight. It was several moments before Hanzo saw the two leaning against the fence, and he jerked away from Jesse as though they had been caught doing something they shouldn't have been doing.

“Don't mind us,” Amari said. She was grinning at them from over the rim of a cup of steaming mug of coffee.

Reyes, beside her, looked even more smug than she did. “You'd better get some sleep, samurai. I'm not going easy on you in the morning.”

Jesse stepped out of the _kamae_ and put his hands on his hips to stretch his back, the bones cracking into place. “C'mon, Boss. Don't be a dick.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jesse. You didn't have to climb onto a roof to get him down.”

Amari laughed, although it wasn't a laugh of surprise – she had clearly been told the story already. Hanzo flushed, wondering if the whole entire ranch already knew. “Come on,” she sighed, shaking her head, “Play nice, boys.”

Hanzo felt a sense of _déjà vu_ nibbling at him, and it took him a second to remember that the woman from the bar last night had said nearly the same thing. His pleasant mood dissolved into anxiety. His memories from that moment were hazy at best, so all he could do was hope that he had said nothing to put her on a trail towards Jesse.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note - this chapter has no plot. It is explicit, bordering on fetishy, featuring rope bondage. Feel free to skip if that isn't your cup of tea. I promise you won't miss anything! This is the final explicit scene, and from this point forward there will be nothing but plot. :)
> 
> ALSO IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE - the translation that Hanzo gives later in this chapter is very specific to the time period of this story. Sonata is not a word that's ever really used anymore, from what I understand. It's sort of the samurai version of saying something like "thou". I just didn't want any of y'all to try to use the words in your own stories and get that bit wrong!

Jesse and Hanzo always woke before dawn to breakfast with the others before Jesse began his day’s work and Hanzo headed to Amari’s house to sit watch over his brother, but that morning Hanzo pulled on his new Western clothing for the first time. Jesse whistled at him from across the room, where he was trying to tame his hair with his fingers in front of the mirror.

Hanzo scowled. “Oh, shut up. I look like a fool.”

“A fool with a nice ass!” Jesse reached out to grab him, but Hanzo slipped away and into the hall with a smirk.

The kitchen was empty that morning except for Reyes, who was leaning against the counter, scraping the remains of strawberry jam out of an empty jar with a slice of bread. He didn't wait a heartbeat before rattling off their chores. Jack was out moving the mares, foals, and geldings from the big pasture they had been grazing in overnight. Jesse and Hanzo were to herd the cattle from their barn to the big pasture, where they'd stay until the day got too hot, and then they'd be moved back to the barn. “Oh, and don't forget to milk them all first,” he added.

“Oh, come on, Boss,” Jesse groaned, “Isn't this the shit you hire all those ranch hands for?”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hear you say something about a ladder?”

They began to argue with each other, and Hanzo, exasperated, began to dig through the cabinets for food. He put some water on the fire to boil in order to make himself a bowl of rice, which he had bought at the market yesterday, and opened up some kind of canned fish. The bickering continued long enough for Hanzo to sit down with his finished breakfast. If he ignored the horrible fishy smell, it was almost like being at home. He would have killed for umeboshi, though.

“Does the orchard have plums?” he asked, interrupting the battle.

“Yes,” Reyes said, “And you can add plum picking to your to-do list.”

“You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me, Boss!” Jesse said, but Reyes was done with the conversation and had left out the front door.

Jesse grumbled to himself, slamming cabinet doors and stomping his feet, while Hanzo picked at his bowl of rice. He was wondering how to make umeboshi with fresh plums from the orchard, hoping he could figure out a way to have some made by the time Genji was well enough to eat it.

“Are you even listenin' to me?” Jesse asked.

“Hm? I'm sorry. What?”

“I said,” Jesse repeated himself, dropping into the seat beside Hanzo, “If you said you ain't got beef over in Japan, does that mean you don't got cows either?”

“Not that I've ever seen,” Hanzo admitted.

“Well, then this is gonna be an interestin' day for you.”

After stuffing themselves full to fuel themselves through the morning, they headed first to the milking barn, where the cows with calves were kept separate from those in the main barn. Hanzo grew anxious as they approached the stinking building. So far, he had never come very close to these animals. Even as he moved around the ranch land, he had always kept his distance. His only opinion of them so far was that they shat _a lot_ and tended to taste pretty good when roasted. Now, unable to avoid them any longer, he walked from stall to stall, in awe of their size. They seemed slow and harmless, but he wouldn't be deceived – anything that large was capable of doing tremendous damage to a man.

Jesse took a pitchfork off the wall and broke into a bale of hay, spreading it out for the cattle. The barn grew louder and louder with their lowing. “We have to milk them all?” Hanzo asked.

“Yeah,” Jesse muttered, swapping his pitchfork for a shovel so he could scrape up the patties of feces and toss them into a wheelbarrow. He seemed content doing the work himself and letting Hanzo stand back at watch, which Hanzo was certainly not going to complain about.

“Don't the calves need the milk?”

“Yeah, but we just milk 'em in the mornin' and they make plenty more.”

Hanzo found the milking stool in a corner of the barn and dragged it out so he could sit down and watch Jesse work. He was glad that the morning was still chilly. It would have been back-breaking work in the heat of the summer day. Drumming his fingers over his knees, Hanzo smiled to himself. “Jesse?”

Jesse grunted in response.

“When we first met, didn't you argue with me that you aren't actually a cowboy?”

Jesse wiped some sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm and grinned. “Oh shut up. I should fling this cow shit right at your pretty face.”

The stalls clean and the wheelbarrow full, Jesse picked a cow for them to start with and gestured for Hanzo to bring the chair over. She was a strange shaped creature, to Hanzo – such a straight, square back with a tremendous round belly. He couldn't tell if she was white with brown spots or brown with white spots, but she had a moist pink nose and dark, docile eyes. Jesse plopped the stool down right at her side, shoving a pail under her swollen, sagging udder. He started the task without asking Hanzo for help, taking a nipple in each hand and squeezing, squeezing, squeezing... streams of milk started to fill the bucket.

“It doesn't hurt her?” Hanzo asked.

“Not at all. In fact, it'd hurt her if we didn't.”

“But wild cows don't need to be milked,” Hanzo pointed out.

Jesse seemed to think about this for a while as he continued filling the bucket. “I think we breed 'em to make more milk or somethin'. I don't really know, Hanzo. I ain't some cow scientist.”

As they spoke, her calf, a wobbly little thing, approached Hanzo. He pushed his warm, fleshy nose – pink like his mother's – into Hanzo's palm. When Hanzo rubbed him between his eyes, the calf's flanks quivered in pleasure. He crouched down to the calf's eye-level, and the little thing flung his floppy body into Hanzo's arms, butting his shoulder with his head. Hanzo's whole life, he had found horses to be stubborn and fickle creatures. Even a beloved steed became unpredictable at times. But the cow and her calf were such slow and gentle animals. They studied him with eyes so huge and watery and black, and he saw none of a horse's fear or temper in them. “They're so calm,” he said.

“Yeah?” Jesse muttered, “Give him a few months and he'll be an absolute devil. Although, I guess this little one'll get castrated before then.”

“Why?”

“So they can keep him with the herd. They usually hire bulls from outside ranches for breeding, I think. Steers like him'll get slaughtered for meat when they're big enough.”

Hanzo folded his arms around the animal's neck, and he pushed his nose against Hanzo's cheek. To Hanzo, it felt like warm velvet. “Poor little one,” he whispered as the calf began to suckle at his shirt collar.

“When I was a kid here,” Jesse said, “things were different. That town we went into the other day, it didn't exist back then. So when we wanted to sell cattle, it was a journey that took months. Me'n the Boss and a whole bunch o' ranch hands, we'd go out on what we call cattle drives. They was some of the best nights in my life. That's real cowboy stuff. Sleepin' under the stars surrounded by a hundred cattle or more. I'd play guitar at night and the Boss'd teach us all songs in Spanish. He'd laugh at me cuz I couldn't roll my 'R' right. It was a lot like what you 'n me did, 'cept we had more food and supplies obviously.”

He stood up suddenly, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I wish he'd been my Pa sometimes. Him'n Morrison. I don't remember enough about my own parents, and I'm sure they were decent people, but I just know my life woulda been a lot better here.”

“Then why did you leave?”

“Same reason you stopped getting' along with your family,” Jesse said, “Things was changin'. No more cattle drives. Work felt like work. I wasn't free anymore. I was losing myself.”

The calf had found Hanzo's ponytail and was trying to eat it, so Hanzo pulled it – wet and sticky – from his mouth and stood, retying it up on top of his head.

“C'mere,” Jesse said, pointing at the stool, “Let's see you try.”

Hanzo took a seat and flattened his palms against the cow's round stomach. Her hair was coarse and dry, and he could feel her belly rise and fall with her heavy breaths. Jesse leaned around him to take his hands and put them in position on her udder. It reminded Hanzo of the way he had moved Jesse's fingers into place on the hilt of the fake kendo stick. He pushed back against Jesse's chest and tilted his head up to kiss beneath Jesse's chin.

Jesse laughed at him. “What? Does a handful o' cow nipple turn you on, Hanzo?”

“No,” Hanzo purred, smiling up at him, “You turn me on.”

He felt Jesse tremble against his back.

They rose together and stumbled backwards out of the stall. Hanzo shoved Jesse down onto the bales of hay, and Jesse's legs wrapped around his waist. Hanzo crashed against Jesse's mouth, shoving his hat off his head so he could sink his fingers into his scalp. Jesse sighed his name and Hanzo licked the sounds from his tongue as his hands traveled up under Jesse's shirt. Jesse's body arched into Hanzo's touches, his face already slack and glowing in pleasure.

“I was so fuckin' scared,” he whispered, as Hanzo devoured every word he spoke with sweeps of his lips, “that you only slept with me cuz you were drunk.”

“No,” Hanzo assured him, “No. I wanted to. I had wanted to for so long.”

“I ought'a lasso you like a bull,” Jesse growled up at him, scraping his teeth across Hanzo's jaw, “And I ought'a ride you like we're in a damn rodeo.”

The suggestion was so absurd that all Hanzo could do was laugh, and Jesse laughed with him, smothering each other in kisses between bursts of more laughter. “Is that what you want, cowboy?” Hanzo asked, and Jesse's kisses moved to his throat, where his teeth became more and more aggressive against his skin. The biting grew fierce and feverish, until Hanzo wasn't sure if he was shuddering in pleasure or in pain. And then.... he had an idea.

“Jesse, do you actually have a lasso?” he asked, cupping Jesse's face in his hands to pry his mouth off of him.

“Why? You wana play bucking bronco?” Jesse asked with a crooked smile.

“No,” Hanzo said, “I want to teach you something. Another samurai lesson, as Brigitte would say.”

Jesse groaned. “You serious, Hanzo? Why now? You got me so wound up, I can hardly stand it.”

“You'll enjoy this, Jesse. I promise,” Hanzo said, “Now, tell me, do you have a lasso?”

Jesse flopped back into the hay with a groan, his excitement deflated. “There's some rope by the door over there, I think. Under the ladder. You see it?”

Hanzo climbed off of him and crossed the barn. On several hooks by the door hung a half a dozen lassos, each one looped up on itself so many times that he couldn't tell the length, but he would have guessed maybe around thirty feet. He draped them all over his arms to carry back to Jesse's side. They were quite heavy, made of thick braided hemp, but he thought they might still work.

“So, what're you gonna show me? Cuz I gotta tell you, Darlin', now ain't the best time for me.”

“Well, it's the perfect time for me,” Hanzo said, dropping all the ropes at Jesse's feet, “Today, I will show you _hojojutsu_.”

“Hojo-huh?”

“ _Hojojutsu_. It is a martial art of binding with rope,” he explained, “Usually it is used to restrain criminals. This isn't very, hm, _proper_ , so don't go spreading this around, but... I've seen some people begin to use similar techniques _intimately_.”

Jesse smiled up at him, beginning to understand. “Oh, well in that case – I reckon I _am_ a criminal after all.”

“Take off your clothes,” Hanzo told him, “And lie down on your stomach.”

Jesse kicked off his boots and wiggled out of his clothes. He was ready, face-down on the dirt, in a flash. Hanzo would have had to admit that he didn't know what he was doing, and watching Jesse strip down was completely un-sexy. He felt like a doctor watching a patient undress, and he wondered if maybe he was doing the right thing. But once Jesse was nude and waiting, he realized he had not really allowed himself a look at Jesse's body since that awkward moment in the stream so many weeks ago, when they were still strangers. Even last night in town, Hanzo had been so frantic and lost in the moment that he had paid attention to nothing but the feeling and, looking back on it, could remember almost nothing besides how wonderful it had been. But now, looming over Jesse and free to stare as he pleased, he noticed the line around his waist where his flesh was split between pale and deeply tanned. The sun had left a splatter of freckles across his shoulders, too. Hanzo had never noticed them before. He straddled Jesse, resting his weight on his knees with one on either side of Jesse's hips. And then he leaned down, pushing his face into the dip between Jesse's shoulderblades, and he kissed the freckles one by one.

Jesse trembled beneath him, already breathing hard. “You ain't gona teach me a fancy bow or nothin'?”

“Silence.”

“It was a valid question! I just wana make sure I'm learnin' right,” Jesse laughed.

“Shut up.”

Hanzo brushed a finger down the center of Jesse's thick back, where the trail of his spine was just hardly visible. He felt the urge to tell Jesse that he loved him, that he had loved him for a long time, but saying it during a sexual situation like this felt inappropriate, at least for the first time.

Hanzo pulled Jesse's arms behind his back. “Hold your hands together,” he instructed, and Jesse obeyed, clasping them together against his tailbone. Hanzo took up the first length of rope and said, “You know by now that I trust you. But do you trust me?”

“O'course.”

Hanzo began at Jesse's upper arms, weaving the rope around and between them, pulling tighter and tighter with every pass. The rope was thicker than he was used to, and he found that he had to do clumsier ties, unable to recreate the intricate patterns he had seen in art. The rhythm of the looping put him in a nearly meditative state, watching the binding grow stronger, listening to Jesse grunt beneath him with each tug. Jesse's muscled arms began to flush from the loss of circulation, and Hanzo changed directions – taking the loops up around Jesse's shoulders and neck, then back down, creating an X of rope across his back. With the end of the rope, he circled Jesse's neck a few times before locking the knot behind his head. Hanzo grabbed the center of the crisscrossing ropes over Jesse's back, testing its strength with a jerk, and Jesse groaned in response.

“Hanzo...”

Already, after just one rope, Jesse was so helpless, unable to so much as flip himself over onto his back. He'd never been in a position like this before, sexually or otherwise. He didn't want to feel helpless in any situation, but this was different somehow. Instead of growing frustrated with the control Hanzo had over him, he was just growing more breathless, his cock pressing hard into the dirt beneath him.

“This is the craziest shit I've ever done,” he said. He couldn't even turn his neck to glance over his shoulder.

“Does it hurt?” Hanzo asked him, running his fingers around the rings of rope around his arms.

“No,” Jesse panted, “Keep goin'.”

Hanzo took Jesse's hairy leg in his hands and bent it so that his heel was against the mound of his buttocks. He took a second rope and began to bind Jesse’s calve to his thigh, starting at his knee and zig-zagging upwards. Jesse hissed, the muscles in his leg burning from the unnatural strain. “Shit, Hanzo,” he muttered into the dirt, “Yer torturin’ me.”

“That is the point,” Hanzo teased him, moving to start with his other leg.

Jesse tried to wiggle free, but with one leg tied already in that folded position and his arms bound behind his back, he was as mobile as a turtle flipped onto its shell. All he could do was rock back and forth and grit his teeth. “My leg ain’t meant to bend that way.”

“Shall I release you?” Hanzo asked, but Jesse just shook his head, and so he finished off the knot on his second leg and sat back to admire the work.

To Hanzo, Jesse bound this way was as beautiful a sight as any of the breathtaking landscapes he had seen in America. His eyes took in everything with hunger. The bulge of flesh around the coils of rope. The beads of sweat rolling slow down his tanned back. Between his legs, the way he quivered in anticipation. Hanzo spat into his hand and his wet fingers found Jesse’s entrance, plunging inside. Jesse, limbless, could do nothing but tense beneath him and whimper into the dirt as Hanzo ruthlessly spread him.

Jesse gasped in pleasure, his legs straining against the knots. Hanzo closed his eyes, the power he had over Jesse made him feel drunk. He could feel arousal creep over him, a sensation he had not noticed the first time due to how fast it had all happened. It manifested as a strange heaviness in his limbs, a searing heat in his bloodstream. It grew so bad that even the fabric of his Western clothes felt like torture against his hyper-sensitive skin

“W-what was… _hhh_ … what was it y-you said?” Jesse asked, “The other night. In Japanese?”

Hanzo couldn’t remember. He felt like he had spoken volumes that night. He felt that an entire epic tale had been woven between their mouths and bodies in that bed, volumes of words spoken and unspoken, every sweep of lip against flesh a novel-length ode to their love and connection. But then, fingers still kneading Jesse’s insides ferociously, he remembered.

“ _Sonata ga hoshii,”_ he said, “What do you think it means?”

“No idea,” Jesse moaned as he rolled his head from side to side, desperate and failing to try and look over his shoulder. “I was hopin’ it was some other way o’ sayin’ _I love you_ that you didn’t wana tell me about.”

Hanzo burst into laughter, sliding his digits out of Jesse and taking the ropes in both hands to give playful tugs at the binding. Jesse grunted in pain as he was jostled around by Hanzo’s pulls on the rope. “I told you all the ways that I know,” he said, “No, it means _I want you._ ”

“Ah, that’s nice, too,” Jesse purred.

Hanzo rolled Jesse over onto his back, his arms pinned beneath his weight. Jesse, his face filthy from the ground, smiled up at him, and Hanzo slipped between his legs, leaning across the length of his long, dark body to smother him in kisses. Jesse wanted to reach up and grab his hair, but his arms were trapped beneath him, and all he could do was open his mouth and let Hanzo’s tongue in. Hanzo’s fingers grappled at the coils of rope that dug into Jesse’s flesh. He almost regretted tying him so tightly, because the button and zipper of his own jeans were so foreign that he didn’t know if he could easily free his restrained erection. He decided to try anyway, his hand slipping between their grinding bodies to fumble with the crotch of his pants. Jesse laughed nervously beneath him, watching his struggling with his face flushed and grinning.

“I’d offer to give ya a hand, but…”

Hanzo pressed a knee into Jesse’s groin, and Jesse groaned at the painful pressure of his weight against his cock. “Don’t make me tie your legs up to your shoulders,” Hanzo warned him.

Hanzo pounced, a hunter taking down its prey. They bodies tangled together, and it was nothing like the sloppy, uncertain, desperate first time. The urgent itch for release had been scratched that night, and instead he played Jesse’s flesh masterfully. With the pumps of his fist, and the strokes of his thumb, he had Jesse leaking precum down his fingers. Jesse’s legs, tied as they were, gave him an angle that, within just a few pushes of his hips, had his head swimming, his body feverish, his breath stolen.

Jesse wanted so badly to do something, _anything_ , to return even a little of the overwhelming pleasure Hanzo was treating him to. But he couldn’t touch him, couldn’t even raise his hips off the ground to grind up into Hanzo’s thrusts. His whole body convulsed, overwhelmed by its helplessness and all of the sensations he couldn’t respond to. He strained against the ropes, and they pulled on his neck, adding a sharp edge of pain to his bliss. He opened his mouth to utter Hanzo’s name, but all that came out were pants and gasps, and Hanzo drove in harder, hungry for more of those noises. Hanzo loved them. Loved him. He wanted to tell him, wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs, wanted to carve the words into his skin, draw them in the clouds across the sky, paint them over the whole town. _I love Jesse McCree._ But it felt so vulgar to confess his feelings like this, balls-deep in Jesse, dripping sweat onto his bare stomach, his fingers sticky with the other boy’s precum.

Jesse lurched, the ropes digging into his skin, his whole body tensing beneath Hanzo’s weight. He came, thread after thread, the creamy fluid exploding from him into Hanzo’s fist, across Hanzo’s shirt, pooling on his own stomach. He thrashed as every drop was milked from him, and the violence of his orgasm dragged Hanzo to the edge, every constriction of Jesse’s muscles squeezing more and more from his cock. When it was over, they slumped against each other, Hanzo’s cum oozing out of Jesse, trickling over his thighs.

The sun had been rising outside, and, with it, the temperature in the barn. Hanzo was pouring sweat, and even relaxing, spent, against Jesse’s heaving body was too hot for him. He wanted a bath, or a swim, or even just a glass of water. But as he sat up and wiped his brow on his sleeve, he was reminded of their ridiculous surroundings and the hard day of work ahead of them.

“Shit,” Jesse said, and it summed up Hanzo’s feelings perfectly.

He stuffed himself back in his sticky pants and began the unpleasant task of untying Jesse, starting with his legs. The ropes had left nasty red welts over his skin that, in some places, were already bruising. Jesse winced when Hanzo’s fingers touched them.

“Are you okay?” Hanzo asked.

“Yeah,” Jesse said, his chest heaving, “Never been better.” He beamed up at Hanzo, and his gaze was full of so much love that Hanzo could hardly stand to meet his eyes. It was overwhelming, having someone who felt that way about him, and even more so to feel the same in return.

 _I’ll tell him soon,_ Hanzo thought, but when he looked down at Jesse, who smiled so blissfully up at him, rushing didn’t seem so important. Jesse knew.

 

* * *

 

 

After that day, Hanzo insisted on praying for the cattle they killed. He liked the animals, found them clean and gentle and intelligent, and it became important for him to respect their lives, even as they were being slaughtered for their meat and parts. Over his teenage years, he had forgotten a lot of the religious rituals that his family had followed in his youth, but he remembered the basics. He built an altar in Jesse’s room, each part of it something he had found lying around the ranch. The altar itself was a crate that he set on its side, a candle pilfered from a kitchen cabinet in place of an incense burner. And when he spent a whole evening searching for some kind of bell, Jesse provided a cowbell, caked in mud and dried, grassy saliva – Hanzo cleaned it thoroughly. When he could find nothing to use for an icon of Buddha, Jesse took a bar of soap and carved it with a knife into Hanzo’s description. The result was childish at best, but Hanzo was so touched, so thankful, that he had nearly wept when he added it to his altar.

At home, their altar was gilded and magnificent, filled with family records. He explained to Jesse how they prayed to ancestors at home, and it was his duty as the eldest son to maintain it. Here, in America, Hanzo felt so far from it all that he didn’t think his ancestors would have heard his prayers at all, let alone had the powers to respond to those prayers. So instead, he kept his little Buddha that Jesse had made for him, and he hoped his feelings for Jesse made his prayers to that little icon all the stronger.

He wanted to build a God shrine as well, but without an authentic charm to place in the shrine, he felt he would be praying to nothing. Maybe Buddha could hear him across this distance, but the Japanese Shinto deities seemed impossibly far away, as far as his ancestors or farther.

Morrison found Hanzo’s desire to pray for the cows a little ridiculous, and Jesse secretly did, too. However, unexpectedly, his altar and prayers endeared him to Reyes. Reyes had grown up Catholic, and he remembered his mother praying obsessively to saints his entire childhood – burning candles, pinning medals into her clothes, saying her rosary. Hanzo’s ritual of lighting the candle and ringing the bell every time they killed a cow reminded Reyes of her, and so the tension between them was alleviated.

But neither of them ever forgot their wager.


	12. Chapter 12

There was one evening, some weeks later, when the summer was so hot and sticky that Jesse and Hanzo had pulled all of the blankets off their bed and sprawled sweating on top of the sheets. Hanzo had just taken a bath – a habit from home that he refused to lose – and Jesse’s hands were all over him, appreciating how smooth and cool his skin felt. He had added persimmon leaves and extract to the water and Jesse buried his face into Hanzo’s hair, breathing him in. It was peaceful, just to lie there after a long day, to be touched without motive, to be smelled and kissed and admired.

On nights like these, he would tell Jesse about some aspect of life in Japan, and that night he found himself describing how the persimmon bath was something he had learned from a geisha. He told Jesse how his family had dozens of favorite teahouses all over the country, and at these teahouses, beautiful women called geisha would entertain them – pouring sake, telling stories, playing music or dancing, teaching them drinking games.

“Like prostitutes?” Jesse asked, and Hanzo had grown offended.

“You do not sleep with a respectable geisha. They are artists. Entertainers. And you must be important even to attend a party with them.”

“Good,” Jesse said, “So I don’t gotta be jealous.”

They smiled together, and Jesse’s mouth moved to his – possessive, fierce. Despite the uncomfortable heat, Hanzo pulled Jesse on top of him, Jesse’s sticky body rolling against his clean one. Jesse’s lips moved across his chin, his cheeks, his ears, and Hanzo reached up to grab his shaggy hair and guide him to his throat.

Chaos erupted outside, and the boys jolted apart as though they had been walked in upon.

“What is that?” Hanzo asked.

They gripped each other in silence, straining to listen. Voices cut through the still night, many of them, far off but shouting loud enough to be heard despite the distance. And they could make out the beat of countless horse hooves. If it had not been a sound that Hanzo had become so used to lately, he might have mistaken it for the sound of a rockslide in the valley.

“Let’s go see,” Jesse said.

They dressed, Hanzo pulling his quiver and the Storm Bow on over his shoulders, and Jesse making certain Peacekeeper was at his hip.

From the house’s porch, they stood and scanned the land. Lights had been lit across the ranch, which normally at this time of night was dark and still, but tonight it was anything but. The first thing that Hanzo saw were the horses, more of them than he could count from this distance, all of them herded together into a tight, tense circle, their muscled bodies moving together like a school of fish. The animals were nervous, pacing, tossing their heads, flicking their tails, stomping their hooves. They were kept in a tight herd by team of American Indians on horseback. There were two dozen of the men or more, dark-skinned and dark-haired, sitting proudly astride their mounts. Reyes, towering above all of them on the back of gigantic Reaper, was surveying the herd.

“What’s going on?” Hanzo asked.

“The Indians bring wild horses to trade with us,” Jesse explained, “C’mon. Let’s go investigate.”

But Hanzo didn’t need to investigate. As soon as Jesse had said the words _wild horses_ , Hanzo had known what was about to happen. Still, he followed Jesse down to the paddocks, his steps as heavy as his heart.

Up close, the horses’ anxiety was thick in the air. He could smell their dusty coats and hear their chomping teeth and heavy breathing. It made Hanzo tense as well. Reyes leaped off Reaper’s back, dropping a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder. “Just the man I was hoping to see,” he said.

Hanzo nodded. 

“Go ahead, kid,” Reyes said, waving an arm towards the pacing animals, “Take your pick of the herd.”

Most of the horses were hardy and stocky, their coats in shades of dull greys and browns. Some were paint horses, their coats patterned with great white markings that shone in the fire light. How could he pick just one out from the herd? His eyes gravitated towards a buckskin at the center of the pacing animals, the coloring so much like High Noon, and he thought about selecting that one until he noticed her belly was round and distended, near ready to foal. No, not a pregnant mare. That was the last thing he needed.

“You’re picking a horse?” Jesse asked.

“Reyes… wants me to train one.”

Jesse took him by the hand and pulled him closer to the swarming animals. Hanzo didn’t want to accept his help with this, he was afraid that Reyes might even consider it cheating, but Reyes stood back and said nothing, so perhaps help at this stage was acceptable. Hanzo had no idea what to look for, after all.

“See the ones with the bites on em?” Jesse asked.

“Yes?”

“You want one of those,” Jesse said, “It means they’re lower rank in the herd. Less dominant. They get bit on and bullied by the others. It means they’ll be easier to break.”

Hanzo glanced up at Jesse. He could imagine Jesse as a horse, picking constant fights with the herd leaders (Hanzo imagined a horse version of Reyes) and losing, coming away from each battle with nicks and scars. Yes. A horse like that suited this experiment. And so Hanzo studied the herd with care, trying to determine which of them had the most signs of lost fights.

Jesse was still holding his hand, and he gave it an affectionate squeeze. Hanzo smiled, sudden confidence surging through him. He could do this.

“That one.”

It was a blond animal from mane to tail, with old grey scars across its shoulders and marring its pretty face. Among the herd, it didn’t stand out very much, due to its muted golden colors, but Hanzo had watched it lope circles around its brethren and liked its energy. He hoped, like Jesse had suggested, that the scars it bore marked it as a gentler animal.

Reyes saddled back up on his monstrous horse and Hanzo watched in awe as he, with the help of a pair of the Indians, danced their horses around the mustangs, singling the scarred palomino from the rest of its herd. For a massive animal, Reaper had a quick step, and he easily intimidated the smaller animal. Without the use of ropes or restraints of any kind, merely using the bodies of their mounts, they backed the palomino into a paddock, and one of the ranch hands rushed forward to close the gate behind it.

“He’s all yours, kid!” Reyes shouted at him, “Jesse, don’t just stand there gawking! Mount up and give me a damn hand!”

Attention shifted away from Hanzo back towards business as Jesse scurried to go fetch High Noon and Reyes began picking over the rest of the herd. Hanzo watched the bustle of activity for a moment, but then he moved to the paddock to observe the new animal. His animal. His horse.

The mustang was cantering circles around the paddock, following the perimeter to find an escape path. He admired the animal’s long, powerful legs and its graceful gait. Hanzo climbed over the fence and dropped down into the paddock. The horse – he could see now it was male – froze in place and watched him with dark, watery eyes. When Hanzo stepped forward, just one foot, the stallion dashed to the far side of the paddock and watched him, his flanks twitching with tension.

Hanzo didn’t know what he was doing. He had never so much as seen a wild horse before coming to America, let alone tried to domesticate one. But he could see how fearful and wary the stallion was, and he decided to take a step back and give the animal some space. He sat with his back to the fence post, and he and the horse watched each other. He felt the hoof beats of the commotion behind him, he heard Jesse and Reyes shouting back and forth at each other, but he never took his eyes off his stallion, and his stallion never took his eyes off of him.

 

* * *

 

 

For many days, Hanzo spent every moment possible in the paddock with his horse. Jesse, jealous about suddenly losing all of Hanzo’s attention, was often there at his side. Out of pity, perhaps, Reyes went easy on them for a while. Hanzo noticed their scheduled chores gave him most of the evening with his horse. Apparently Reyes was giving him a fair chance to succeed. He hadn’t made much progress, though. The horse still backed away from him. Most of the time, the boys simply napped together at one corner of the paddock, or Hanzo would read aloud to Jesse, who hated reading himself but loved listening to Hanzo’s voice. Sometimes Brigitte would come to visit them, and she begged to continue their kendo practice. Those days, he would teach them lessons right in the paddock, and the stallion watched with curiosity, but never let them get close.

One evening, Jesse was showing him how to mend a rip in his shirt sleeve, a box of sewing supplies in the grass between them, and Hanzo watched as the stallion crept up behind Jesse, studying them from a few feet away. His muscles still quivered, ready to flee, but the fear Hanzo had come to recognize seemed gone.

Hanzo stood up very slowly, but the horse retreated to the other side of the paddock. He swore.

“I wish you’d let me help you,” Jesse sighed, “He’d be rideable by now if you’d just let me try.”

They had argued over this countless times already, and Hanzo grit his teeth to hold back his bubbling anger. “Reyes challenged _me._ He knows you can do this. Just leave me alone.”

Perhaps a month ago, Jesse would have been hurt by this, and maybe would have even stood and left, but he just shook his head and took the needle up again. Hanzo wished that he could explain to Jesse what he felt was at stake in breaking this horse, but, of course, if he told Jesse about the conversation, he’d argue how foolish it was. Maybe this was foolish. But in a lifetime of denying himself anything foolish, wasn’t he entitled to this one thing?

“What’ll you name him?” Jesse asked.

“What?”

“He’s your horse now. What will you name him?”

Hanzo hadn’t thought about it at all. He’d never named anything before. Even Storm Bow had been passed down to him with a name. “You will help me,” he said.

“I will?” Jesse laughed.

Hanzo shot him a dark look.

“Okay, okay. I’ll think o’ somethin’.”

Hanzo walked along the perimeter of the fence, making his way towards the mustang. This was the first push he had ever made, the first test of the stallion’s wariness. The animal didn’t take his eyes off of Hanzo, but he didn’t retreat from the approach. Maybe ten feet away, Hanzo stopped. He held out a hand towards the horse.

Jesse had set the shirt down, stabbing the needle into the spool of thread so that he could watch.

Hanzo took a step forward.

And, to both their surprise, the stallion did, too.

Jesse beamed, his hands clenched into anxious fists in his lap. “C’mon, baby,” he whispered.

Hanzo took another step forward.

Then, for a long time, nothing happened. He kept his arm out until his muscles were tingling with exhaustion.

The horse took a second step, closing the gap with his extended neck. He didn’t let Hanzo’s hand touch him, but Hanzo could feel the heat of his breath against his palm as he took in his scent. Hanzo put out his other hand, and the horse flinched away from it, but he did not flee. After a second, he stretched to smell the second offered palm. The animal’s nose was hot, releasing puffs of humid air. Bracing himself with a deep breath, Hanzo pressed both hands forward. The stallion’s nose was velvety, just like the cow's. He stroked the animal’s lips, which were damp and grassy, and then his fingers moved to touch his cheeks. He was nervous again, his ears flattened, but it allowed the touches. Hanzo studied the horse’s eyelashes, the direction that his coat grew in, the muscles trembling in his powerful neck. He took it all in, admiring the animal.

“Good boy,” he said, “Yes. Good boy.”

The horse’s eyes stopped their frantic darting, and for one heartbeat, both man and animal made eye contact.

“ _Hanzo_!”

The shout sliced through the moment. The stallion shrieked and rose up on his rear legs. Hanzo felt a flash of anxiety, recalling the way that Baylock had nearly struck him when the cougar had attacked. He leaped backwards, his heart hammering in his chest, his mouth suddenly dry, and his horse galloped away to resume his anxious pacing of the far wall of the paddock.

“ _Hanzo_!”

It was Fareeha shouting for him, racing barefoot across the grass towards the paddock. He pulled himself up to his feet and shouted at her, “You’ve ruined it! You have ruined everything!”

If she heard him, she didn’t seem to care. She launched herself at the fence, clinging to the posts of wood as she doubled over to catch her breath. “Hanzo,” she panted, “It’s your brother. Genji! Genji is awake!”

To Hanzo’s surprise, the announcement sparked no joy. He pictured Genji finding himself disfigured and handicapped, and all he felt was dread. Had he done the right thing? Should he have saved his brother? Wouldn’t Genji rather die than spend his life like this?

Jesse had crossed the paddock to his side, and his heavy hand was placed on Hanzo's shoulder. It was like he could read Hanzo’s thoughts. “It’ll be okay.”

 _Will it?_ Hanzo wanted to ask.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Jesse offered.

No. He wanted to go alone. This was his own burden. But he felt so weak, and Jesse’s hand on his shoulder gave him strength. “Please?”

The walk across the farm seemed impossibly long and arduous, as bad as their trek to Overwatch. Hanzo kept his thoughts numb, unable to face the barrage of emotions. Angela met them at the door. Her solemn face was enough to let Hanzo know all he needed. He felt like turning around.

The door to Genji’s room was closed. Hanzo and Jesse stood before it for several agonizing seconds. Then Hanzo rasied a fist and knocked.

“Do you want me to stay out here?” Jesse asked as they listened to the movement on the other side of the door.

Hanzo could not find his words. He simply laced his fingers in with Jesse’s in reponse.

Amari opened the door. To Hanzo’s horror, rather than letting him in with her, she slipped into the hall and held the door opened for him to go in on his own. He felt suddenly sweltering in his jeans and button-up shirt. He was dizzy. He was nauseous.

Jesse gave his hand a squeeze, a gesture they had begun to use in a variety of situations, but which had come to mean _I love you_ in the absence of Hanzo's spoken words. Hanzo squeezed his hand back and took a step forward.

Hanzo had never been affectionate with his family, but at the sight of Genji sitting upright in his bed, propped with half a dozen pillows, Hanzo wanted nothing more than to hold him. He remembered the weight of him against his chest as the rode across the prairie on horseback, and how it had helped him overcome so much just to feel his brother’s life in his arms. But after years of refusing to so much as meet his brother’s eye, how could he suddenly explain the change? Genji was staring down into a bowl of jasmine rice, but when he noticed Hanzo and Jesse enter, his gaze shifted up to them. Hanzo had never seen his eyes look so dark before, narrowed with such anger. Never before had the two Shimada sons looked so much like brothers, if one overlooked the mosaic of healing scars across Genji's face. For weeks, he had been so heavily bandaged that Hanzo had been unaware of the extent of the damage.

Hanzo saw him look up and down at his ridiculous cowboy outfit, and he regretted not changing clothes first.

The room was still for a very long time. Even Jesse, who always rocked on his heels or fidgeted with his belt buckle or ran hands through his hair when idle, stood motionless. When it became obvious that Genji would not speak up first, Hanzo crossed the room. He sat on the side of the bed. Genji set his bowl of rice, untouched, on the bedside table. He looked away from Hanzo and stared, his expression numb, at the far wall.

Hanzo folded his arms around his brother, and Jesse saw Genji’s eyes open comically wide in shock. But then his expression softened, and he closed his eyes and pushed his face into his brother’s hair. “ _Onii-chan_ …” he sighed, and he wrapped his arm around Hanzo, the bandaged stump of his second severed arm resting over his brother’s shoulder, and he began to cry.

Hanzo cried, too.

Jesse felt awkward about tagging along, and he sat down in the seat normally occupied by Angela, trying to look anywhere but at the brothers. He had no idea that, at the same time, even while weeping, Hanzo was thinking that he didn’t think he would have ever had the strength to so much as enter the room if it hadn’t been for Jesse’s presence.

“Angela told me what happened,” Genji said, “I’ve been awake for days, but I asked her to tell no one until I was ready. She also told me that you blame yourself. I do not blame you, brother. My misfortune had nothing to do with our disagreement.”

Hanzo pulled away, his expression icy. “I won’t argue with you,” he said, “but I cannot agree.”

The brothers were silent. Hanzo’s face was flush with unspoken anger, bubbling just beneath the surface. Jesse wanted to speak up in agreement with Genji, but he held his tongue. This wasn’t his place.

“Brother, they believe that they can build - ”

“Please,” Genji interrupted, “I don’t want to think about that now. Angela hounds me about it endlessly.”

“They say you can have a normal life.”

“I will never have a normal life.”

The heat between the two stares was so intense that it could have started a fire. For a long time, the room was quiet and tense. Then, Jesse spoke – “I think you should meet Torbjorn before you decide.”

Genji’s eyes flew to him, as sharp and cruel as a glare from Hanzo. “You think, because you sleep with my brother, that you know what is best for me?”

Hanzo could not believe such harsh words had just come from his younger brother. He had never known Genji to be so angry, to lash out at others. Had Genji – the real one – actually died on that train and been replaced with this second version of himself, all bitterness and self-loathing? And Hanzo also wondered, was this what people heard when he himself spoke? Was this how people saw Hanzo? Like a cornered animal, striking out in fear? His instinct was to respond with more anger, especially in defense of Jesse. No one, not even Genji, could speak to Jesse that way. Only he could. He looked over at the young man, whose eyes had fallen to his boots, whose cheeks were pink from shame, and rather than rage at his brother, he found the strength to take a deep breath and hold his tongue.

He switched to Japanese, so that Jesse could not hear. “ _He dressed your wounds. He carried you here in his arms. He took the hat from his own head to shield you from the sun and rain. You owe him your life_.”

Genji flung the sheets off himself, revealing his legs – or, rather, where his legs should have been.  Each scarred, burned stump was cut off just below the knee. “ _Is this the life I should be grateful for?_ ” he barked in Japanese.

Both Hanzo and Jesse recoiled, even though Jesse could not understand his words. Genji’s tone, and those disfigured legs, spoke volumes in a universal language.

“ _You are angry and hurt and scared_ ,” Hanzo responded, “ _But I know you better. You have loved life since childhood. And there is still so much more of it left to live_.”

“ _Hanzo_ ,” Genji warned him, “ _You didn’t even want to be alive anymore after losing your precious sword. What you lost, what you broke our father’s heart over, was insignificant. Meaningless. Especially compared to this._ ”

Hanzo rose to his feet, his hands clenched to fists at his sides. He opened his mouth to shout, but Jesse was suddenly at his side, his hands on his shoulders. Even though Jesse couldn’t understand what was being said, the cold fury in Hanzo’s body language had drawn him over. It drew the anger from him. It drew him back to his senses.

Genji laughed at him, “ _You’re the white man’s dog, now? If only you could see yourself._ ”

“ _I am not his dog. We are equals._   _I was wrong about everything before._   _And you are wrong about everything now_.”

Genji deflated a little at that. It was significant for Hanzo to admit he was wrong in any situation, and even more significant for him to consider another man his equal.

“ _Remember the wild horses?_ ” Hanzo asked, “ _You saw them on the back of the train._ ”

Genji didn’t answer, but Hanzo knew that he had not forgotten.

“ _I should have looked at them with you. I am sorry._ ”

The room again became quiet and tense. Genji stared down at his hand, resting on the sheets between his thighs. Hanzo waited for him to speak. He felt Jesse’s hands rise from his shoulders, but just before withdrawing completely, one of his callused fingers just delicately, almost as if an accident, brushed across Hanzo’s jaw. The affectionate touch dumbfounded him. Jesse told Hanzo that he loved him at every opportunity, but that single impromptu action had been so powerfully packed with love that Hanzo felt a tug at his very soul.

“ _If you let Angela rebuild your legs, I can show you a wild horse up close. I have been taming it myself._ ” Genji blinked down at his hand. It was as though he hadn’t even heard Hanzo speak. “ _Please, brother! Say something!_ ”

And, in vicious English so that Jesse could hear, Genji replied, “Leave me alone.”

 

* * *

 

Hanzo never came to bed that night. Jesse lay awake, waiting for him to return warm and soft and smelling of persimmon or plum or orchid, but Hanzo never did. After an hour of listening hard for footsteps in the hall and hearing only his own breaths, Jesse rose, pulled on his clothes, and went to find him. Stepping into the main room of the house, Jesse’s panic rose. The lights were all out, but the dark rooms smelled strongly of liquor from a glass that had been spilled on the kitchen counter – whiskey. “Damn it, Hanzo,” Jesse muttered to himself, “If I gotta fetch you off a roof I swear I’ll skin yer hide.”

He stormed out into the night. Jesse stood on the porch and scanned the land, bathed in starlight. A light was on in Torbjorn’s workshop, but Jesse still hadn’t introduced them, and he knew Hanzo wouldn’t wander over there. There was movement in the shadows around Amari’s house, too, but he knew Hanzo wasn’t dumb enough to go over there drunk. In fact, anywhere near Genji was probably the last place he’d find Hanzo like this. Jesse considered the other options - the pastures, the orchard, the barns, or the stables. He decided to try the orchard as a last desperate resort, because looking up every tree was going to be tedious, so he headed down to check the farm buildings. First, the stable. He knew that it would be nearly empty, as the horses were left in the pastures overnight most of year, but some would have been left inside – the mares that were close to foaling, the horses that couldn’t be trusted with the herd because of temperament, sick horses, new horses…

 _New horses_.

Jesse felt certain he’d find Hanzo there. Approaching the huge wooden doors, he hesitated, trying to pick out any usual sounds from within. The animals, though, were quiet. He opened them and, sure enough, found Hanzo drinking in the dark, seated in front of his mustang’s run. The horse looked uncomfortable with the commotion, backed against the far wall and chomping his teeth.

“Dang it, Hanzo,” Jesse muttered. Hanzo looked up at him, and his pitiful expression was so far from the proud samurai’s son that Jesse didn’t even know how to react. He stood there, struck stupid.

“I thought you went to sleep,” Hanzo muttered.

Jesse strode across the stable and sat down in the dirt beside him, prying the bottle from his grip. “I was waitin’ on you, Sugar.”

“I am sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jesse said, “Why did you come here? Why don’t you wanna come to bed? Is this about yer brother?”

Hanzo wiped his face with the back of his hand. Had he been crying? It was too dark in here for Jesse to make out tears on his cheeks.

“No,” Hanzo answered.

“So what’s up?”

Jesse took the final swig of whiskey as he waited for Hanzo to start talking. For a while it seemed Hanzo wasn’t going to answer. He twirled a piece of hay between his fingertips, breathing heavy in the dark. Finally, “I decided I will spend every moment of free time with my brother, to make up for the time I wasted by being distant towards him in recent years. Every day, until he is back to his old self again. I hate looking at him and seeing him so angry. So like me. That is not my brother in that bed! That is not Genji!”

“That’s awful nice o’ you, Hanzo,” Jesse said, “He’s just in shock. Once Torb gets those parts made, Genji’ll be back to normal. Don’t give up on him. I know you won’t. But… I thought you said it wasn’t about him?”

“It isn’t,” Hanzo snapped at him.

“Then…?”

“If I devote all that time to my brother,” Hanzo explained, “Then I will never be able to tame my horse!”

Jesse had to clench his teeth so he didn’t laugh. “Oh, Hanzo,” he said, “It’s okay. I can tame him for you. By the time Genji’s better, he’ll be - ”

“No!”

“Hanzo, Sugar, why are you taking this so seriously? It’ll be okay if I help out. He’ll still be your horse.”

Hanzo was pawing at his face with trembling hands, and Jesse realized he was crying. He was so astonished that he couldn’t even think of what to say or how to comfort him. “This isn’t about the horse!” he moaned.

“Hanzo, Darlin’…” Jesse sighed, reaching out to take his shaking hands by the wrists and prying them away from his face, “What’s it about then? If it ain’t about your brother, and it ain’t about the horse, then what’s got you in such a state?” He brought Hanzo’s fingers to his mouth, kissing his knuckles, trying to soothe him.

When Hanzo didn't immediately answer, Jesse pulled him in to his lap, folding his arms around Hanzo’s body and rocking him gently like a child. He cooed at Hanzo, kissing his face and hair, and it was several long minutes before Hanzo was able to speak. “I just don’t want you to leave me,” he said, his tears soaking Jesse’s shirt, “I have nothing left now but you!”

“ _What_?” It had been the last thing that Jesse had expected to hear, “We’ve been over this, Darlin’. I ain’t leavin’ you. At this point, I don’t even think I would if you asked me to.”

“It is not that simple.”

“Yes, it is. It’s absolutely that simple,” Jesse assured him. He cupped Hanzo’s face in his hands and was back to scattering kisses from chin to brow.

“No, no,” Hanzo moaned, pulling away, “Reyes said… Reyes is right…”

“Oh, hell. Yer still goin' on about this? What did he say to you, Hanzo? What bullshit did Boss _exactly_ say?”

“He said that you were like a wild horse,” Hanzo explained, “You shouldn’t be tamed. If I tamed you, you’d have a broken spirit, like the horses you break in. And you’d always be seeking a chance to run back to the wild.”

“The bastard…” Jesse muttered.

“And I said not all horses would run away! Some horses are loyal. You can bond with a horse without breaking their spirit! If I could do it, then I could make it work with you…”

“Ah. I see. It all makes sense now… The bastard. The absolute bastard.”

Hanzo continued on and on about how he had to tame the horse, absolutely _had_ to. Jesse let him talk himself tired, all the while stroking his hair and kissing his face, until finally Hanzo fell calm and quiet.

“I’d be takin’ it personal if I didn’t know you don’t trust no one,” Jesse said, and his lips turned up in the softest smile, “I ain’t a horse, though, Sugar. And you’re just as wild as me. Look at you, you’re fierce as a dragon. You’re smart and fancy and all… If anyone should be scared they ain’t good enough, it should be me.”

“You’re mocking me.” Hanzo glared at him, but Jesse kept grinning, and it chipped away at that scowl.

“I ain’t. I swear. Bein’ here with you ain’t crushin’ my soul. Not even a little. Listen to yerself, Han. I ain’t a broken animal. Do you really think I’m so miserable with you?” Hanzo dropped his head against Jesse’s chest and could hear the muffled rumble of his heartbeat. Jesse rubbed his back. “Yer tellin’ me this whole time, since you had that conversation with Reyes, you still been worryin’ about this? Even though I promised you. Even though we already talked about this? Why don’t you believe me?”

“I’ve had everything taken from me. My culture, my title, my sword. My dragon. Now my brother,” Hanzo sighed, “I lost it all with pride. But I can’t lose you. You’re the one thing I could not stand to lose. You are the thing I will fight the hardest to keep. I love you.”

He really expected Jesse to be shocked or emotional about the revelation, but Jesse just kept holding him, rubbing his back in slow, firm circles. When he spoke, though, his voice quivered with feeling, “I love you, too, Hanzo. Didn’t think you’d ever say it.”

“But you had to know that I did,” Hanzo said.

Jesse laughed, “I’ve known from day one.”

“No, you did not!”

“Okay, okay. Day two.”

“Perhaps,” Hanzo laughed, his fingers gripping at the fabric of Jesse’s shirt, his body shaky and weak from the crying.

“So we’re done havin’ this conversation? It’s gettin’ old, Han. I ain't a horse, and I ain't leavin'.”

Hanzo nodded.

“And you’re gonna let me work with your horse while you take care o’ your brother?”

Hanzo nodded again.

“And you’re never gonna listen to Reyes again? And you’re gonna come back up to bed with me? And you’re gonna be mine forever?”

Hanzo leaned back to smile up at Jesse, rolling his eyes. “Yes, yes, and yes.”

“I’m gonna kick yer ass if this comes up again.”

“You couldn’t if you tried,” Hanzo said, climbing off of Jesse and pulling himself to his feet.

Jesse jumped up, brushing dirt from his jeans. He grinned. “Probably not.” Hanzo sighed and looked up at Jesse, who put his hands on Hanzo’s shoulders and took a deep breath. “You good?”

“No.”

Jesse nodded and kissed the top of his head. “It’ll be okay. Let’s drag him to Torbjorn. I bet that’ll change his mind.”

“He won’t go with us,” Hanzo said.

“Don’t worry about that! He’ll go. And if he don’t, then I’ll worry about it with you, okay? No more worryin’ about things alone. Y’hear me?”

“I love you.”

Jesse purred. “I ain’t never gona get tired of hearin’ that, since you made me wait so long. Just keep sayin’ it again n’ again.”

Hanzo reached to grab him and pull him in for a kiss, but he was shocked by a sudden nudge to the back. His stomach plummeted, and he turned to see who behind them had witnessed the entire conversation, but it was only his horse, who had leaned around the gate of his run in order to press his nose into Hanzo’s shoulder. Hanzo smiled at him and raised a hand, tentatively, to the horse’s face. The horse pushed in to his palm and as Hanzo rubbed between his eyes, he heard Jesse gave a happy sigh behind him.


	13. Chapter 13

Despite the new hope that Hanzo felt following that emotional conversation, Genji wouldn’t even let Hanzo in his room the following day, nor would he the day after, or the day after. “Give him time,” Jesse said each time, but the failed attempts built up Hanzo's guilt and anger. Hoping to distract him, Jesse encouraged him to work on training his horse, and when that didn’t work, he started showing up with Brigitte each evening, ready for kendo practice. 

Hanzo knew that Jesse hated kendo, so he was really touched by this effort. Even though Jesse was clumsy in every  _kamae_ , and even though he never got his grip on the stick correct, Hanzo went easy on him, and the lessons were how they ended up spending most of their free time while they waited for Genji to come around. 

Growing tired of constantly pulling splinters from their hands during their lessons, the three of them decided to do something about their fake kendo sticks. Hanzo's suggestion was to have Jesse smooth them out, but Brigitte had another idea. “Let’s have my Papa fix them!” Hanzo and Jesse had both been uncertain about the idea, knowing that Torbjorn was one of the busiest men on the entire ranch, but Brigitte wouldn’t take no for an answer, and Hanzo was curious to finally meet the blacksmith, so they agreed to ask him.

They crossed the ranch to Torbjorn’s workshop. It was a frightening building – its furnace bellowing thick black smoke, dangerous-looking machinery of black iron casting misshapen shadows everywhere. Only slightly less unusual was the man himself. Even though Hanzo had never met him, he had seen the man many times from a distance. He was as short as a child, but extremely muscular and thick-built. Most unsettling of all was his left arm which had been torn off in some freak accident before Brigitte had been born. Instead of replacing the limb with a normal prosthetic, he had, instead, built himself a huge mechanical claw-arm. Hanzo was sure he could easily crush a man’s skull in that claw. His workshop, quite frankly, could have been sunshine and floral wallpaper and brightly upholstered furniture, and Hanzo still would have been terrified to go there, all because of that angry little man and his giant claw.

Today, the workshop was empty except for one of the Lindholm sons, who was shaping horse shoes in the forge with sweat drenching his brow.

“Where’s Papa?” Brigitte asked, and her brother pointed to the door in the back.

Hanzo was about to suggest they come back another time, but Brigitte rushed for the door and flung it open without so much as a knock. Hanzo was prepared to apologize for the intrusion, but then he saw that, inside, Angela and Torbjorn were bent over a table together, looking at photographs of his brother’s wounded body.

“Papa! Papa!” Brigitte shouted, “Hanzo-sensei can’t teach me kendo with these! Will you help us?”

She had an armful of the long, sturdy sticks they had been using for kendo, and she dumped them on the floor at her father’s feet.

“Do I look like I have time for your games, little vone?” Torbjorn snapped back at her. She climbed on his blacksmith’s apron, bouncing around with impatience and excitement. Despite his diminutive height, Brigitte was still small enough and he still strong enough that he hoisted her up on his shoulders one-handed. She pulled at his hair, filthy with soot and oil, as he turned his glare in Hanzo’s direction, “I have to make _someone’s_ ungrateful brother a new pair of legs.”

Hanzo flinched as if the words thrown at him had been a fist, instead. “I have money. A lot of it. I can compensate you for your time and efforts.”

“Dis’ll be more expensive dan you can even imagine,” Torbjorn warned him.

Hanzo clenched his hands into fists at his sides, and Jesse recognized the anger in his tense limbs. He put a hand gently between his shoulder blades to calm him. “My family has the funds, I can assure you,” Hanzo said. It was incredible to him that his brother’s future lay in this rude little man’s greasy palm and horrifying claw. But he couldn’t help but notice the way that massive metal appendage so deftly flipped the papers over on the table, as skillfully as Hanzo might have with a pair of chopsticks, or the way that he was able to reach and pluck Brigitte off his back by the fabric of her shirt, and set her down at his feet with surprising care. This prosthetic, as freakish as it was, was so well-built that Torbjorn could use it like a real arm, and Hanzo could not deny he was impressed.

“Please excuse my brother and I for the burden we have put on you and your family,” Hanzo said. He sunk to his knees on the floor, which was coated in a layer of coal-dust. All eyes were locked on him as he placed his hands down before him, his elbows bowed outwards, and he leaned over, lowering his head until his brow nearly touched the ground at Torbjorn’s boots. He closed his eyes, aware of the heat of everyone’s stares, and after an exhale, he opened his eyes again and slowly raised his head up. He placed his hands on his thighs and kept his gaze at Torbjorn’s feet. It was certainly the deepest, humblest bow he had ever given anyone in his entire life.

“Get off de floor, boy!” Torbjorn shouted at him, “Ve don’t need any of dat in here!” But he was blushing and flustered, clearly flattered to receive such a bow, and so Hanzo rose, feeling his own cheeks burn, too.

“We are happy to help your brother,” Angela said. It had been weeks and weeks since Hanzo had last spent the day in her company, thanks to all the work he now did around the ranch. He had nearly forgotten how much he enjoyed his time with her, but she looked so sad now. “But he won’t let us make him the prosthetics.”/

“Says he von’t be experimented on,” Torbjorn added, “As if ve’ve never done it successfully before. An insult to me, it is.”

“He doesn’t mean it that way,” Angela protested, “He’s only scared.”

“I… I will talk to him. I just know that if he could see how normal his life might be, then he would be glad for the prosthetics. Things will always be different for him, and perhaps more difficult, but his life is not ruined. He has not been put on a different path in life. He is and can be the same person he was before the accident. I just need to sit with him, but he won’t even allow me in his room,” Hanzo said, “But in the meantime, please, don’t stop planning. When he changes his mind, I want to have the procedure done as quickly as possible, so that be cannot change his mind again.”

“Papa,” Brigitte asked, her small hands wrapping around her father’s claw, “Are you gonna make Mr. Genji a new arm like yours?”

“Not if he von’t appreciate it, I von’t,” Torbjorn answered her with a huff, “It isn’t easy vork, you know. Angela’s been up all night, losing sleep - ”

“As have I,” Hanzo interrupted.

“Papa,” Brigitte whined, bored by all of this adult business, “the sticks! Don’t forget the sticks!”

“Brig, let’s leave your pa alone so he can help out Mr. Genji, okay?” Jesse said to her, but Torbjorn waved his claw at Jesse, silencing him.

“Yah, don’t vorry,” he muttered, “You just vant them smoothed down and shaped? I can do it. Just leave dem here for a few days and I vill vork on them as I get the chance.”

“A few days?” Brigitte complained.

“Or I can give dem to your broder?”

“No!” she shouted, stomping her feet.

“Very vell. Den a few days will have to be good enough, right, little vone?”

He found a scrap of paper on his desk, and Hanzo sketched for him what the finished product should ideally look like. He explained everything he knew about the sticks – what they were traditionally made of, how much they should weigh, where they should balance. Torbjorn jotted notes down, laughing whenever Brigitte piped up with suggestions of her own – “I want mine to be blue!” or “glue on tons of feathers!" When Torbjorn had thorough notes on the task, Hanzo and Jesse excused themselves. As they were backing out the door, Hanzo asked, “What do you want to do in the meantime, Brigitte? Shall I teach you tea ceremony?”

Brigitte, who was furiously doodling all over her father’s note pages, looked up at him with big, sad eyes. “Sorry, Sensei,” she said, “But I can’t play any more today. I have something I have to do.”

“Vat could you possibly have to do?” Torbjorn laughed.

She glared at her father, her lips in a perfect pout. “I can’t tell you,” she said, “But it’s very important.”

“Oh, okay. Vatever you say,” Torbjorn said, shrugging at Hanzo and Jesse, who could only shrug back.

 

* * *

 

 

The year’s first batch of apples had ripened in the orchard that week, and Jesse and Hanzo spent the following sweltering afternoon filling baskets with them until their fingers callused from the picking and their backs ached from the climbing. The fruit was carried to Torbjorn’s home, where his wife and daughters would make ciders and butters and sauces to can. They had expected to find Brigitte there, bored out of her mind since kendo was on hold until their practice sticks were finished, but Brigitte wasn’t there. Apparently she had been missing all of yesterday and that day, only returning home to sleep in her bed before running off again the next morning.

Hanzo wondered what she might be getting into, but no one else was surprised by her sudden shift in interests.

Their to-do list done for the day, Hanzo went to Amari’s to see if his brother would let him in to visit. Fareeha was at the table studying from a thick text book of her mother’s, and when Hanzo and Jesse entered, she shook her head. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”

Hanzo sighed. There was not enough energy left in him to argue after a day of hard work.

“It’s okay,” Jesse told him, “Just give him time. He can’t keep you awake forever.”

Fareeha slammed her book shut and jumped to her feet. “You know,” she said, “I can think of something fun for us all to do.”

“Oh? And what might that be?”

She stood tall, pulling herself to her full height to eyeball Hanzo. “I want to see if you are any good with that bow of yours.”

“Any good?” Hanzo scoffed, “I am _the best._ ”

Behind the house, she set up targets in the trees and bushes, on the fence posts, hanging from the laundry line – they were old toys of hers, empty bottles and jars, scraps of wood that she carved faces into with Jesse’s pocket knife. By the time they had set everything up, the lighting was low, so they agreed to meet there after work tomorrow.

Turning back to the main house they shared with Reyes and Morrison, the boys stumbled upon Brigitte, who was petting one of Amari’s cats. “Howdy, Miss Lindholm,” Jesse said, tipping his hat to her, “What’ve you been up to? Me ‘n Hanzo have missed you.”

She looked up at them both, her eyes narrow and thoughtful, “I can’t tell you,” she said, the same answer she had given her father’s days ago.

“Oh? And why is that?” Hanzo asked.

“It’s a secret mission. Strictly confidential.”

Jesse laughed, “Reckon she’s done with you, Hanzo! She’s moved from samurai to a spy!”

“I am not a spy!” she protested, “Besides, I could be a samurai and a spy if I wanted!”

Hanzo nudged Jesse in the side, his expression pure mischief, “Samurai are too honorable to resort to espionage,” he told her, “We had ninja instead.”

“Ninja…” Brigitte whispered, “I’m a ninja.”

Jesse chuckled. “Can we expect a visit from a ninja tomorrow night during samurai target practice?”

“What?” Brigitte asked, her face falling, “Samurai target practice?”

“What’s wrong, little lady?”

“I can’t go,” she said, “I have my secret ninja mission…”

Hanzo reached out to give her an affectionate pat on the head. “That’s fine. You do your mission. We can do another samurai target practice soon. I’m not going anywhere.”

He felt one of Jesse’s broad hands settle on the small of his back, and even though he was still looking at Brigitte, he knew Jesse was beaming beside him. He could feel the warmth radiating from his smile.

 

 


	14. Chapter 14

The next evening, Hanzo and Jesse met Fareeha behind her house. She had a bow of her own, one which her American Indian father had made for her, she said, and had taught her to use. It was a well-made, handsome bow, but compared to Storm Bow there was no denying it looked like a twig and some string.

Jesse dropped into the grass and fanned himself with his hat, taking his place as their audience and cheerleader.

“You sure you don’t want to try, Jesse?” Fareeha asked him with a smirk, “I’ve got an old bow I can loan you.”

“Ha! Sure! And make myself look like an ass compared to a little girl! I don’t think so!”

“I’m not a little girl,” she snarled, “I’m only five years younger than you."

“Still, I don’t wana be made a fool of!” Jesse said, “And by the way, Hanzo, don’t you let her hustle you. She’s better than she looks!”

Hanzo snorted, “Ha! You think she’s better than me?”

“I ain’t sayin’ that. I’ve never seen you shoot before, is all. And she’s real good.”

“I am a better aim than her _and_ a better aim than you,” Hanzo said. Before Jesse’s very eyes, he seemed to have transformed from the boy Jesse had grown to love back into the haughty samurai’s son. 

Jesse laughed at the absurdity of it, “Well, o’course you are! I hate usin’ a bow.”

“No. With your revolver,” Hanzo said, “In fact, I could shoot your revolver out of your hand quicker than you could draw it and pull the trigger.”

“Oh, you’re on!” Jesse said, pulling himself back up to his feet.

“Come on, guys,” Fareeha groaned, “Don’t be idiots. Jesse, he’s going to shoot your hand off!”

Jesse laughed, “Sweetheart, he aint’ quick enough to hit my hand _or_ my gun.”

“This is so stupid!”

Hanzo ignored her, “If I win, you have to admit I’m the best shot, _and_ you have to take a bath before bed every night for the rest of the summer.”

“Deal!” Jesse said, “And if you lose, do I get somethin’?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Well if you lose, you gotta marry me,” Jesse teased him.

“Ugh! You guys are being so stupid!” Fareeha shouted, “You two can’t get married!”

“I know, I know. I’ll think of somethin’,” Jesse said, “C’mon, Fareeha, you’ll count down for us from three?”

He and Hanzo moved to opposite sides of the yard and faced each other. Jesse’s hand hovered over his holstered gun, and Hanzo held Storm Bow at his side. “What are you going to aim for?” Hanzo asked.

Jesse gazed around the yard, his eyes settling on a target, “That bottle over there. On the fence.”

“Very well. Come on, Fareeha. Count us down.”

She groaned, pulling at her hair, “This is so stupid! I’m going to tell my mom not to heal you when he shoots through your hand, Jesse.”

“Okay, that’s fine,” he said, “Come on, we’re waiting!”

Fareeha sighed, exasperated, and she began her countdown. But as her voice rang out, loud across the yard, Hanzo did not move a muscle, did not even raise his bow. At “Go!” Jesse’s arm moved, quick as a whip, and the explosive crack of his gunshot echoed off the surrounding mountains, scattering a murder of crows that had been perched on the rooftop. As they screeched their indignation, Jesse stomped a boot into the dirt, “Damn it, Hanzo! You didn’t even try!”

“I had more to gain from this wager in losing,” Hanzo said. His face was very serious, but his lips were turned up in the subtlest of smiles.

“Huh?” Jesse didn’t understand what Hanzo meant in the slightest. But then realization dawned on him, and he gave a bark of laughter. He crossed the yard and caught Hanzo in his arms, hoisting him up over his shoulder. Hanzo flailed, kneeing him in the gut and slapping his back, although it was all halfhearted. “Yer an idiot, Hanzo! I was just jokin' about marryin' ya!”

“You both are making me nauseous. Can we please, _please_ just start shooting things?” Fareeha grumbled.

To pass the rest of the evening, they came up with other, less dangerous ways to test Hanzo’s aim. Fareeha fired an arrow into the air, and Hanzo had to strike as many targets around the yard as he could before it fell. Jesse tossed bottles for Hanzo to shoot down from the sky – he missed none. What impressed Jesse and Fareeha the most was not just Hanzo’s aim, but his speed – he fired arrows with a deadly aim as quickly as gunfire, and notched the next arrow before the previous one had even struck its mark. His speed gave Fareeha an idea for a new challenge.

“I’m going to shoot at that jar on the fence post,” she said, “See the one I mean? And if you can hit my arrow out of the air, we will both admit you are the best marksman.”

Hanzo had never shot a target so small and so fast, but he wasn’t about to balk at the challenge. His ancestors had been legendary archers. They had bested the Mongols attempting to invade over six hundred years ago, they had sunk ships with single well-aimed shots, could fire with such force that their arrows could pierce suits of armor – this kind of archery trial ran in his blood.

“I can do this,” he said, setting his face in a look of stony determination.

“No one can pull that off,” Jesse said, shaking his head.

But Hanzo ignored him. He studied the distance between Fareeha and the jar, and he began to move around the yard, finding the angle and position that best suited the task. Once he had found his place, he gave Fareeha a stern nod.

“Your turn to count down, Jesse,” she said.

Hanzo planted his feet and brought the Storm Bow up. He did not draw the string, did not take aim. He closed his eyes, and he listened hard, feeling the direction of the wind on his cheek. Jesse’s deep voice startled him as it rang out across the yard.

“Three!”

Hanzo inhaled.

“Two!”

Even with his eyes closed, he could picture in his mind the way Jesse’s lips must have parted, his tongue must have curled, to form that single word, which almost became two syllables in his drawl. It was a sound that reverberated through him, and he felt a feverish heat rising from within, burning beneath his skin, suffocating him, making him feel lightheaded.

“One!”

He heard Fareeha’s bow string release, a sound impossibly clear and sharp despite the distance. The heat inside of him was agony now, and a strange noise began in his head, just a rumble at first, but then it grew and grew, into a mighty, deafening roar. Something jerked in his gut – _now! –_ and lightning-fast he let an arrow fly. He expected to hear his arrow cut through the air, but instead he all he heard was the violent churning of a sudden wind around him. His eyes flew opened in shock only to find that Fareeha and Jesse were gawking at him.

His tattoo was glowing the sharpest, palest blue – the color of lightning. The light had taken a nearly-solid form, coiled like an eel around Hanzo’s arm, and Hanzo could only see it for a heartbeat, the blink of an eye, before it fizzled away, settling back into his skin. It had been a dragon, long and slender, no bigger than a python, and it had tried to burst from within him as he fired the shot from his bow.

Before Hanzo could even begin to collect his thoughts, Jesse gave a whoop of joy so loud that the whole ranch must have heard it, no doubt Genji inside the house could, the whole building seemed to shake with the volume. He launched himself across the yard, running as fast as his legs would carry him at Hanzo with his arms outstretched. Hanzo was confused, shaken, but the sight of Jesse barreling towards him gave him a jolt of clarity. He let his bow fall to the grass and leaped into Jesse’s opened arms with a howl of victory, and Jesse caught him, stumbling at the impact of their bodies crashing together, and they screamed and laughed and cheered in each other’s faces.

“What happened?” Fareeha asked, “What was that light?”

Neither of them could calm down enough to answer her. “I knew you could do it!” Jesse shouted, spinning Hanzo around in a circle before collapsing to the ground. Hanzo landed hard and breathless on top of him, and Jesse threw his head back, crying up at the sky. “You did it, you bastard! You did it!”

“I couldn’t fully summon him,” Hanzo said. Even though his words were humble, his spirit was restless with pride and happiness. He wanted to run across every inch of the ranch, hand in hand with Jesse, screaming about his accomplishment to every soul in earshot. 

“Who the hell cares? He was real! He was beautiful!” Jesse cried, and the fact that he was so excited, too, made Hanzo's heart swell. He reached up to touch Hanzo’s cheek with his knuckles, and Hanzo nuzzled into the touch, his face sweaty from the exertion. “ _You_ were beautiful," Jesse added, and Hanzo pressed his forehead to Jesse's. 

“Are either of you going to stop being gross long enough to explain what just happened?” Fareeha asked.

“Nope. Never,” Jesse laughed, and Hanzo, to further annoy her, planted a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss on Jesse’s lips. “What did happen, Hanzo?” Jesse asked him, tilting his head up to meet the kisses, “How did you do it?”

“I don’t know,” Hanzo admitted. What had made that moment different from all the countless times he had tried to summon his dragon in the past? Nothing had really been at stake, besides his pride. All he could remember from the instant before it happened was the way Jesse’s voice had rung out like the bell in the temple at Hanamura – a rich, melodious baritone. “I think that… I think that it was _you._ ”

They locked eyes, Jesse’s burning with the intensity of his emotions. Hanzo felt himself being pulled into those pools of rich copper and amber and chocolate. The flecks of many colors came together to form a shade of warm brown that was Hanzo’s new most favorite color in the whole world.

“Holy shit,” Fareeha said. 

“I’m gonna tell yer ma you swore,” Jesse threatened her with a grin.

"No, guys. Really. Look at this." She had bent to pick something out of the grass, and the boys untangled themselves from each other to go investigate what she now held in her hands. It was her arrow, and Hanzo’s arrow had pierced it, splitting through its center.

The three of them leaped around the lawn, whooping and hollering, Fareeha and Jesse taking turns climbing all over Hanzo and nearly crushing him in their rowdy celebrations.

There was motion at one of the windows as a curtain was drawn aside, and two curious faces peered out at the chaos.

“Hanzo,” Fareeha said, “Look.”

Hanzo shoved Jesse off of him and turned to the window. Brigitte’s small, pale face was staring him down, wide-eyed. Beside her, sallow and frowning, was Genji.

Hanzo felt the excitement drain from him. How could he be out here acting like a fool while Genji suffered so? “Brother…” he muttered, and across the expanse of lawn, their eyes met through the glass. Framed by the window panes as Genji was, it felt more like Hanzo was looking into a mirror. How could life be so unfair? For the first time, he was feeling things besides bitterness and rage, but Genji seemed to have taken those negative emotions from him in exchange.

As he stared, Genji’s lips turned up. The curtain quickly closed, but Hanzo _knew_ he had seen a smile.

He hurried to the front door, flinging it opened, but Brigitte stood in his path, her hands on her hips. “You can’t come in,” she said, “You’re going to undo all of my hard work!”

“Hard work?” Hanzo asked.

But she was done with the conversation and slammed the door on the three of them. Fareeha shoved Hanzo out of her way and slammed a fist into the door. “You can’t shut me out of there! It’s _my_ house!” she yelled.

 

* * *

 

 

Jesse and Fareeha both wanted to test Hanzo further – not his archery, but his ability to summon the dragon. They spent hours outside trying to recreate the same scenario or to come up with new ones that might stir the dragon inside, but Hanzo was so distracted thinking about Genji that he could barely focus on the task. It was very late by the time they dragged themselves to bed, completely unsuccessful in their endeavors. His tattoo had not so much as even glowed.

Too tired to even bathe before crawling into bed, and knowing that in only a few short hours he would have to be awake to tend to the ranch, Hanzo was asleep as soon as hit head hit the pillow. His sleep was restless. He kept Jesse awake as he tossed and turned. In his dreams, he saw them – his dragons.

Coiled together, filling the Hanamura castle from floor to ceiling, were _two_ of them, electric-blue like the dragon that had burst from his tattoo. As they breathed, they let off sparks of lightning. Every movement of their serpentine bodies had their scales slicing holes in the tatami mats and leaving scratches in the wooden columns. They were destroying the place, their writhing knocking down portions of walls and shaking the whole foundation like an earthquake.

“Stop!” he shouted, because he felt that soon they would fell the entire castle.

Hanzo had almost failed to notice - wrapped in their wriggling coils was a third dragon, being crushed and smothered by their great muscles. It had been nearly impossible to see because its body, nearly identical to the other two, was lifeless, and its yellow-green glow was so faint that it was hardly visible in the blue light cast by the other pair, on the verge of being entirely transparent. Even as he watched, its light was flickering out, its breathing growing more labored. It was dying.

“Let him free!” he yelled at the two blue beasts, but they were so massive, exuding so much power, that he was helpless to do anything for the third dragon. “Let him go! He is dying! Can’t you see?” He was yelling as loud as his voice could go, straining every muscle with the effort of his shouts. It was useless. His voice simply would not get loud enough, could not be heard by those tremendous mythic creatures.

He jerked awake. The bed was damp with his sweat, and Jesse was leaning over him, shaking his shoulder. His cheeks were hot from the streaks of tears; he could taste their salt on his lips and feel them roll down his chin and throat.

“Darlin', you okay?” Jesse asked him, brushing his cheeks dry with the heels of his palms.

Hanzo reached up to take Jesse by the wrist, holding his arm against his chest. He was heaving for breath, his heart hammering in his ribcage.

“I’m here,” Jesse told him, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Hanzo's forehead, “It was just a bad dream.”

For a moment they lay there like that in silence but for Hanzo's ragged panting. Jesse stroked the black hair from his damp brow until Hanzo had been soothed. “How many dragons did you see me summon, Jesse?” he asked.

“Funny you ask, Hanzo. I ain’t sure. It was just one at first, the one on your arm. But once you fired the arrow, for a split second… there might've been two. It all fizzled out before I could see much of ‘em. It was in the blink of an eye, you know? I think when you opened yer eyes and got surprised by ‘em, it made ‘em go away.”

“Could there have been three?” Hanzo asked.

“No. I don't think so. Possibly a second one, but definitely not a third. Why?”

“What color was the dragon? Or were the dragons?”

Jesse laughed and smoothed back Hanzo’s hair across the pillows. “They was white, I guess? Or blue. Blue-white, I’d say. Why? You had a bad dream about dragons?”

“No,” Hanzo said, “I think that I had a bad dream about my brother.”

 


	15. Chapter 15

The next morning, rain.

It did not often rain on this side of the mountain. Most of the farm was irrigated by a series of aqueducts that Torbjorn had designed and built around the land. But that day, it rained hard, and Hanzo and Jesse spent the entire morning and the best part of the afternoon repairing a broken span of fence in the downpour. Despite how soaked he was, despite the mud he kept slipping in, despite the blisters forming on his hands and the memories of his nightmare at the edge of his thoughts, Hanzo was in a good mood.

Part of the reason for his mood was that Reyes was gone – he had left Jack and Amari in charge of the ranch to visit some family. He hadn’t left Overwatch in ages, none of them had, but since Jesse was around, Reyes figured Jack had some extra help to make sure that everything didn’t fall apart in his absence. The tension between Hanzo and Reyes had been mostly alleviated, but he still felt uneasy around the man, and his vacation felt like a vacation for Hanzo as well. But the main reason that Hanzo was happy was because that Brigitte was not allowed to play outside in the rain. So whatever she was trying to do with Genji, whatever her secret mission might have been, she would not be around to shut Hanzo out again. It would be the perfect chance to try again to see his brother. Of course, Genji could still sit there and refuse to talk to him. And he could still yell for Angela or Amari until one of them came to force Hanzo out. But Hanzo had seen that smile on Genji’s face yesterday – he _knew_ he wasn’t imagining it. He had a feeling in his gut that maybe Genji would permit a visit today.

“It’s mighty strange,” Jesse said, once the repairs had been completed and they were admiring their back-breaking work, “Don’t you think it looked like someone cut through the wood on purpose? Like with a saw or somethin’?”

Hanzo shrugged. The finished fence was now the last thing on his mind. “Jesse, you go on ahead…” he told him, “I think I’m going to make a stop at Amari’s.”

Hanzo had never tried to go down there alone before, and Jesse wondered if he shouldn’t try to go with him. Hanzo’s temper might make the situation with Genji worse instead of better, but Hanzo looked so confident with his decision to go alone that Jesse didn’t argue. “Okay,” he said, and he flashed Hanzo a smile and a wink, "I reckon we still got a couple o' hours of havin' the place to ourselves if you hurry.”

“Don’t you dare so much as sit on that bed without bathing first,” Hanzo warned him, and they parted ways – Jesse heading up towards the house and Hanzo trudging across the waterlogged grass towards Amari’s.

Inside the eldritch building, Amari and Fareeha sat at the table over an anatomy book. Fareeha’s pretty, dark face was twisted in frustration as she tried to recite something – Hanzo did not know how to translate the words she said, or if they were even English at all, but he imagined they were bones or muscles, perhaps, judging by the drawings before her of the human hand with, first, the skin pulled away and then, a second, of the muscle pulled back as well. Hanzo stood in the doorway, waiting for one or both of them to stop him from continuing to Genji’s room. But, instead, Amari merely glanced up and said, “Take your shoes off. Don’t track mud all through my house.”

Hanzo slipped out of his boots and crossed the room, hurrying down the hall to Genji’s door. Before his nervousness could stop him, he knocked.

How long did he wait? Seconds? Minutes? It felt more like hours. There was no call to come in, no sounds of shifting from the bed inside. Maybe Amari had not stopped him from coming back because Genji was not here? Or maybe Genji was asleep? He should leave. Why had he come here without Jesse? He needed him so much now.

Jesse would tell him to open the door, he knew.

So he did, very cautiously, expecting to hear Genji shouting for him to go away. But the demand never came.

Genji was propped up in bed, just the way he had been the last time Hanzo had seen him. A book lay in his lap, closed, and he watched Hanzo enter with a face so expressionless and numb that Hanzo didn’t know whether to be happy or terrified or angry or any of the other dozen emotions rattling around inside of his chest.

“The rain here is different,” Genji said.

They could hear it beating down against the roof and windowpanes. It turned the sunlight grey and made the room feel cold and sterile. Hanzo had not thought about it, but he supposed that it was different, in ways he could not put his finger on.

Genji’s room had been transformed since Hanzo had last been allowed in. Brigitte had drawn him pictures that now hung everywhere – doodles of her clawed-arm father, sketches of each of Amari’s many cats, a self-portrait clad in a suit of armor like a medieval knight, one of Hanzo and Genji together engaged in some kind of acrobatics on a patch of grass, another of Hanzo and Jesse and herself holding hands in front of a sun. There were more than Hanzo’s eyes could easily take in. All of the pictures featuring Genji showed him with an arm and legs shaded in, the pencil's lead smudged by tiny fingerprints – prosthetics. The drawings were not the only addition to the room. She had filled it with toys and stuffed animals, and he saw, at the foot of Genji’s bed, one of their kendo sticks. It had been finished by her father, constructed beautifully, more perfect than Hanzo could have even imagined.

“I see you have had a visitor,” Hanzo said. He moved in closer but didn’t take the seat at Genji’s bedside yet, still expecting to be told to leave.

“She has proven much harder to get rid of than you,” Genji said.

“She is tenacious,” Hanzo agreed, and his lips twitched in a smile. He had grown so fond of her, over the past months.

“She has told me everything,” Genji said, “About your ‘samurai lessons’ she calls them. I would never have believed her, if she hadn’t showed me her _kamae_ and _seiza._ ”

This was already more than they had said to each other in who even knew how long. Hanzo slid down into the chair, his body tense, still bracing for Genji’s anger to turn on him. With his face so heavily reconstructed, nearly more metal than flesh, Hanzo struggled to tell if he was grimacing or smiling. He longed to hold his brother, but knew better than to try.

“She has also told me,” Genji continued, “That you spoke to her father about my prosthetics. That choice is not yours to make, brother.”

Hanzo flinched. He felt so betrayed by Brigitte, such a terrible turn from the warmth he had felt seeing the room filled with her artwork. She was so young that he knew there was no way a little girl her age, even a precocious one, could have known how badly her attempts to help might have backfired, how severely she had sabotaged his hopes of a future with his brother in it. Of course Genji had only allowed him in to scold him. Of course it had been foolish to come here at all.

Genji kept going, “What little that is left of this body is mine. I don’t wish to become someone’s science experiment. I don’t want to live as more machine than man.

“You will have full control over the limbs,” Hanzo protested, “You have not seen what I have seen. Torbjorn - ”

“Yes. Brigitte’s father. I know. I have heard all about him. What do you think she was doing in here, Hanzo? Playing dominoes? Well, we did once, but what she has been doing this whole time is telling me endlessly how her father can plait her hair and pet the family dog and open doorknobs and drive tractors. She has been completely unwilling to stop going on and on about how dexterous and capable her father is with his fake arm. How _dare_ you send a child in here to torment me, Hanzo?”

“I did not send her,” Hanzo growled back at him.

He couldn’t believe it. Brigitte’s secret mission, this whole time, had been the same as Hanzo’s. She had tried her hardest to convince Genji to undergo the procedures. He recalled how she had been in the room for his entire conversation with her father. How must she have felt, seeing him bow so low? Seeing him beg? He, who was her idol, who taught her honor, and had taught her to bow, as well. He couldn’t imagine the impact it must have had made on her, and how important, in that moment, Genji’s prosthetics must have seemed. She had been trying her absolute best to help Hanzo, when in reality the whole time she had been making things worse.

“Just meet him, Genji,” he pleaded, “You don’t even have to speak. I’ll tell him not to even mention your parts. Just have dinner with him and see how normally he lives his life. He is not held back by his arm, he is given freedom.”

“Do you hear how ridiculous you sound?” Genji snapped, “You, Hanzo, who threw a tantrum when father wanted to install electricity at home. You scoffed when the Hanamura train station was built. You fought tooth and nail against any man-made, mechanical innovation. And here you are, telling me to turn my body into one.”

“I was wrong,” Hanzo said, “I understand things better now.”

“You understand _nothing._ ”

“I understand that change and innovation are not inherently bad! I understand that I was comfortable and complacent under father’s wing, so much so that I did not yet know myself!” He paused to give Genji the opportunity to retort something, but Genji merely blinked back at him, and with the plates in his jaw, Hanzo could not read his expression at all. So he continued, “I was groomed as a child to be father’s heir, to be the next daimyo! When that title was stolen from our family, I was completely lost. I had never imagined making choices about my own life. I had no sense of self beyond what our bloodline required of me. You, the second son, who would never been the heir, were always free to live as your own person. You always knew yourself. Even if you had no clue where life might take you, you always had an identity outside of your Shimada family name. I had no idea that it was possible to be me, myself, Hanzo, without a title and a castle and a sword. I believed those things were what made me. I know better now.”

“All because of your cowboy?” Genji scoffed at him.

Hanzo felt anger flare up in him, and he rose to his feet, his hands clenched in fists at his sides. How _dare_ Genji mock Jesse that way? How _dare_ he even bring him up? But then he remembered his last confrontation with Genji, when Jesse had lurched across the room to drop a hand on his shoulder and calm him. He imagined that hand was back, anchoring him. He inhaled, exhaled, then relaxed his fists. “Jesse had something to do with it, certainly. But the most significant cause of my growth has been because of you. For days, I rode across this stupid country with your body cradled in my arms. I expected every time I looked down to find you dead. But you did not die. You survived. And yet here you are, acting so unaware of how much of a gift that is. I would take your place in an instant, Genji. With no hesitation. I spend every moment of every day wishing I had been in that train car instead of you, or that we had not fought, and I had let you walk the train with me to safety. And if I was in your place, brother, I would let Angela do her procedure. Because there is still so much life ahead of us, and we have so much of the world still left to see. Home is not the castle, Genji. Nor is home Hanamura. Home is more intangible than a building or a village. You know... At night, sometimes, when I am unable to sleep, I recall your weight against my chest, and it soothes me.”

“Brother,” Genji interrupted him.

Hanzo saw his dark eyes were watery. In silence, they stared at each other. The rain beat a light tattoo on the window. Hanzo, still drenched, began to shiver. He couldn’t bare to just watch his brother sit there weeping. Genji had always been the more emotional of the two. As a child, whenever Genji injured himself or had his feelings hurt, it had been Hanzo he ran to for comfort. Not their father or his concubines, not the servants. Hanzo. His older brother.

Hanzo moved so he was perched on the edge of the bed. Although his chest was tense and he could hardly breathe, his expression had softened. “I summoned my dragon,” he told Genji.

“You _did_?” The tone in Genji's voice had undoubtedly changed.

Hanzo met his eyes again and continued, “It began to form, but I do not think I was strong enough. It faded away before I could summon it fully. Or rather, them. I believe there might be two.”

Genji pulled his gaze away from Hanzo's, out of distrust or jealousy, Hanzo couldn't tell which. “When did this happen?” he asked.

“Yesterday.”

“So that is why you were celebrating in the yard?”

Hanzo stared down at his hands, which were fidgeting in the wrinkles of the sheets, just as Jesse always fidgeted. It seemed he was picking up the other boy's habits. He felt so guilty that he had felt a moment of such intense happiness, just outside of Genji's window. And he felt guilty for every moment of happiness since the accident. His first time being intimate with Jesse and every time since. The kendo lessons. The rowdy dinners with Morrison and Reyes and sometimes the Amaris, too, where everyone talked and yelled and laughed like a family. Not the distant father and horde of timid concubines, but a _real_ family. So many positive things had happened to him since coming to Overwatch, all while Genji had laid here in pain and misery.

“The cowboy saw them, too?” Genji asked, impatient with Hanzo's thoughtfulness. “And Fareeha?”

“Ask her yourself. She's here. In the house. I'm not lying.”

“I never implied that you were,” Genji spat back at him, but after a few heartbeats of tension, he met Hanzo's eyes again, suddenly looking excited, “Did they look like all of the paintings? How big were they? What colors?”

“I really don't know. I only saw one for sure, and even that was only for an instant. It had wrapped around my arm. It was small, like a very large snake, perhaps. But I think it had not quite finished forming at that point. I think that it, or they, are huge when fully formed. Beautiful. Long and scaled and magnificent, just like the paintings. I dreamed of them last night.”

“So the legends are all true?” Genji asked, “I never believed! Hanzo, I always thought it was a fairy tale! You aren't lying to me, brother?”

“You heard us cheer.”

“Brother, do you think that I have one, too?”

Hanzo swallowed. There was no way that he could tell Genji the details of his dream, but there was suddenly so much hope in his brother's eyes. He had to keep that hope burning. “I saw yours, too, brother. In my dream.”

“What did it look like? What did it do?” Genji gasped, taking both of Hanzo's hands together in his one.

“I barely saw it, but... it was green. Yellow-green.”

“Green has always been my favorite color,” he said, and there was no denying he was smiling now, as he squeezed Hanzo's hands to his chest.

“They were great serpents,” Hanzo said, encouraged by his brother's excitement, “Coiling around themselves. And their mouths were so massive and filled with terrible teeth. And just like in the paintings, they had long whiskers that hung from their mouths.”

“I want to see them, too,” Genji said, but his face had suddenly fallen, “Brother... if all of the stories were true, then why did my dragon not save me on the train? Why did it fail to protect me?”

Hanzo could only stare as the bitterness returned to Genji's face. He had no answer for that. He had seen how powerless Genji's dragon was. It was too weak even to maintain its ethereal glow. Genji's dragon was not strong enough to do its job. If he truly had two, as he felt certain of, then why couldn't his brother have one of his?

“I do not believe you.”

“ _What?_ ” Those had been the last words that Hanzo expected to hear.

“I do not believe you,” Genji repeated, and he threw Hanzo's hands aside, his own hand falling back into his lap and clenching into a fist, “This is all a scheme to get me to allow Angela to do the operation. There is no such thing as dragons. If there were, mine would have come to me.”

“We all saw it!” Hanzo shouted, rising to his feet, “There were other witnesses!”

“Please do not get mad with me, brother. I see what you are trying to do,” Genji sighed, “I appreciate how much you care. And I am glad to see how much you have grown. But I know what is best for myself.”

“How can you know what is best when you won't even educate yourself? Why are you giving up an opportunity like – ”

“ _Silence!_ ” Genji interrupted, holding up his hand, “You should leave.”

“Fine,” Hanzo snarled, turning to the door,-

“You're welcome to visit me,” Genji said to his back, “But please never bring up this issue, or the dragons, again.”


	16. Chapter 16

Hanzo stomped through the house, leaving muddy footprints all through the room. Jack would scold him for it later. He pounded on the door to the bathroom, and Jesse inside shouted, “ _What the hell_?”

“Get out of there,” Hanzo barked at him, “Come out right now!” He slammed his fist on the wood again, and the whole door shook in its frame.

Jesse flung the door open. He stood there shivering and naked, dripping a puddle of bathwater onto the floor. “I thought you was Boss, beatin' on the door like that. The hell's gotten into you?”

“Get dressed.”

“Why?”

“We are going back outside. I _must_ summon my dragon again,” Hanzo said. He reached around Jesse to snatch the pile of filthy, soaked clothes from the floor and thrust them into Jesse's arms.

“Hanzo, it's pourin' out there. And we tried for hours yesterday. We can't force it to happen. You just gotta wait til the time's right. 'Sides, you can't even shoot with the storm goin' like this.”

“I can. It is the Storm Bow, after all, so perhaps my connection with it will be stronger.”

“Yer actin' crazy. I knew I shouldn't've let you go off on yer own. I dunno what you two said to each other, but you can't get so riled up. You'll never get him to see yer point of view like this.”

“Fine!” Hanzo shouted, “If you will not assist me, then I will go out and do it alone!”

He slammed the door shut in Jesse's face and stormed down the hall, but Jesse flung the door back open and caught him around the waist. Hanzo whipped his arm back, his fist snapping against Jesse's cheek, a burst of pain shooting up from his knuckles through his whole hand. Jesse doubled over with a shout. He held his face in his hands, swaying on his feet. Hanzo understood what he had done and the whole house seemed to spin. He was so lightheaded from the shock and horror of what he had done that he had to grasp the wall just to stand.

“Jesse. Jesse. I am so sorry. Jesse...” He stumbled closer to Jesse, taking his forearm so he could try to pull his hand away from his face, but Jesse refused to let Hanzo overpower him. “Jesse. I didn't mean – I am sorry. It was a reflex. I am so sorry. I love you.”

“It's okay,” Jesse groaned, “I... I ain't mad. I'm.... I'm gona go see Amari. Can you get me my clothes?”

Hanzo didn't want him to leave, but he stumbled back to the bedroom and pulled a fresh pair of jeans and a shirt from the drawers of Jesse's dresser. By the time he had returned, though, Jesse was gone. He stood in the hall, clutching Jesse's clothes to his chest, feeling waves of panic followed by waves of numbness. How could Jesse be so angry that he left without even so much as underwear on? Hanzo wandered down the hall, prepared to follow Jesse to Amari's home at least to give him the clothes, but he found that Jesse had already pulled on his old, wet clothing from the bathroom floor and was trying to tug his boots on at the front door. His face was purple-red and so swollen that his right eye could barely open from how bloated his cheek was.

“Let me help you,” Hanzo said.

“No,” Jesse said, “Please. I'm goin' to Amari's. I just need to go.”

He had finally got his feet into his boots and opened the door, but he hesitated in the threshold. Hanzo put a hand on his back, and he flinched.

“Jesse, I... I love you,” Hanzo said, pulling his arm back.

“I know," Jesse said, not even turning back to meet his eye.

“I am so sorry.”

“I know.”

Hanzo watched Jesse disappear into the sheets of rainfall. For a long time he remained there, even after he lost sight of Jesse in the darkness, just listening to the drops of rain hitting the roof of the porch. It wasn't until he had gone to draw and heat the water for his own bath that he realized, for the first time, Jesse had not said “I love you” back.

 

* * *

 

 

Hanzo tried to distract himself by reading after his bath, but the guilt and shame and fear jumbled up the words on the pages, and the candlelight playing across the room created shadows of flames that only reminded him further of the his scalding, uncontrollable anger. Thinking was making him nauseous, but he found nothing could take his mind off of Jesse's poor, swollen face. He couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep.

 _I should go to him,_ he thought, _he is testing to see if I'll come._

But Jesse wasn't like that. He was always up front about his feelings, about what he wanted or did not want. Jesse would not play a game like that. He needed to just give Jesse time... right?

Hanzo heard the front door open, heard boots on the wooden floors. He threw his book aside and raced to greet Jesse with more apologies. But it wasn't Jesse at the door; it was Jack. He was out of breath, muddy, and red-faced.

“Is something wrong?” Hanzo asked, fearing the worst. Jesse had left, or Hanzo had hurt him worse than he had thought.

“I have to go in to town. I got a weird telegram from Gabe.”

 _Gabe?_ It took Hanzo a second to realize he meant Reyes.

“I'll be gone til tomorrow evening at the least. Do you think that you and Jesse can manage the ranch? All you have to do is keep the hands on task, they know what to do while I'm gone.” Hanzo hesitated for a heartbeat, thinking about the rift between him and Jesse that might prevent them from working together, and Jack noticed the hesitation and shook his head. “No, no. It makes no sense to go. I'll see if one of the Lindholm boys – ”

“No,” Hanzo said, “You go. We can manage this. And Amari will be here if we need help.”

“I should tell her – ”

“No!” Hanzo stopped him, “You go. I will tell her.” It seemed like the perfect opportunity to go check on Jesse without seeming like he was checking on Jesse.

With that settled, Jack handed Hanzo the telegram and went to fetch his horse. Hanzo wasted no time. He crossed the ranch to Amari's house by moonlight, fighting the urge to run. The rain had stopped but the earth was still wet and muddy. It was like hiking through a swamp.

Inside the house, Jesse and the two Amaris were sitting together at the table in the front room. Fareeha, in a pale yellow nightgown, was pressing a cloth to Jesse's purple, swollen cheek. Amari was grinding something in a mortar. When he entered, the chatter among them went silent, and all eyes turned on him. Hanzo knew that his reason for coming was to deliver Jack's message, but that didn't seem to matter at all now that he was here. All he wanted was to make sure Jesse didn't hate him. Yet he couldn't think of what to say, and Fareeha was glaring at him with a cold fury in her dark eyes. She might as well have been Genji, snarling at him from his bed.

While no one spoke, Jesse kicked the chair next to his out from under the table, gesturing with a tilt of his head for Hanzo to take a seat. Fareeha looked betrayed by this welcome.

“Are you okay?” Hanzo asked.

“Just a bruise,” Jesse said, “I'll live. Never knew you had such a mean backhand, Hanzo.”

Hanzo couldn't bare to meet any of their gazes, so instead he fell into the seat beside Jesse and watched a fluffy brown tabby groom itself at Amari's feet. The cat's swishing tail seemed the only movement in the otherwise still room. A feather falling to the floor could have shattered the quiet.

“Jack asked me to let you know – ”

“And here I thought you'd come down to check on me,” Jesse interrupted him.

“You told me not to!”

But Jesse just smiled and propped his feet up in Hanzo's lap. “I know, Darlin'. I'm just jokin'.”

Amari finished whatever concoction she had been working on, and she rose to her feet, taking her daughter's place at Jesse's side. She dipped the cloth in the mixture, and then brought it back to Jesse's face, dabbing the green mush into Jesse's swollen flesh. He hissed in pain as she put pressure on the bruise.

“Jesse, I – ”

“Quit,” Jesse said, “I ain't mad. I just needed some space before I got mad.”

Hanzo looked up at Jesse and somehow managed a little smirk. “You never give me space, so why should I give you any?”

Jesse laughed and nudged Hanzo in the gut with his heel.

“Fareeha,” Amari said, “Time for bed.”

“ _Mum_!”

“Quiet. You have already been up far past your bedtime.”

There was no arguing with Ana Amari. The girl gave one last defiant look back at Jesse, as though he might protest on her behalf, but he had closed his eyes and leaned back to allow her mother to tend to his face. With a sigh of defeat, she trudged to the room she shared with her mother, dragging her feet the whole way down the hall.

With her gone, Hanzo braced to be scolded by Amari or Jesse or both, but Amari merely handed him the cloth. He jumped up eagerly, taking it back to the mortar to soak it in more medicine, and then he pressed it gingerly back to Jesse's cheekbone. He cradled Jesse's head in his free arm, combing fingers through his hair. Even though Jesse still wore a troubled frown, he did not pull away.

“Would either of you like some tea?” Amari asked.

“Naw, I couldn't stand that Japanese junk you made last time,” Jesse answered. He opened his good eye to peer up at Hanzo. “No offense.”

Hanzo brushed his fingers over Jesse's lips and smiled down at him, “None taken. It is an acquired taste.”

“You, Hanzo?” she asked.

“No, thank you.”

“Very well. You said you had been sent here by Jack?” she asked.

Hanzo had nearly forgotten. He set the cloth back in the mortar and shifted through his pockets to find the telegram. He passed the small rectangle of paper to Amari, who spent a long quiet moment looking it over. Much longer than it should have taken for her to read it. Hanzo picked up a slight furrow in her brow.

“I don't like this,” she said.

“What's wrong?” Jesse asked.

“This telegram is from the next town over, but in the _opposite direction_ from where Gabriel was headed,” she said.

“Maybe he had to take a detour?” Jesse suggested.

“Maybe he lied,” Hanzo muttered.

But Amari shook her head, “I don't believe this came from Gabriel at all.”

“ _What_?” Jesse reached across the table, snatching the paper from her fingers. Hanzo peered over his shoulder to look down at it. However, the message looked perfectly normal to him, aside from the atrocious spelling.

GABRIEL REYEZ TO JOHN MORRISSON AT OVERWATCH RANCH.

WAS ATAKKED AND ROBBED ON RODE – (STOP) – NOT TO BAD BUT NEED RIDE HOME – (STOP) – PLEASE COME.

 

“Look at the time stamp on the telegraph,” Amari said.

A line on the paper noted that the message had been handled in the office at 7:47 P.M. “About two hours ago?” Hanzo asked.

“That town is nearly four hours away,” she said.

“That ain't how the Boss woulda dictated a message at the telegram office, either,” Jesse said, shaking his head, “And _John_ Morrison? What the hell?”

“I don't think it was written in a telegram office at all,” Amari told them, “I believe that someone filled out a blank telegram using a typewriter and is trying to lure Jack away from the ranch.”

“That seems a bit of a stretch,” Hanzo said.

“C'mon, Hanzo,” Jesse said, “How many thieves do you think it'd take to mug Reyes? A dozen at the very least. There ain't no way.”

“But why would anyone try to lure Morrison away?” Hanzo asked.

Neither Amari nor Jesse appeared to have an answer, but she stood and crossed the room to a trunk beside the door. From it, she pulled the most magnificent sniper rifle that Hanzo had ever seen. Not that he had seen many, but it was a truly beautiful weapon.

“I'm going to stop him,” Amari said, “How long has he been gone?”

“I haven't been paying attention to the time. He left right before I came down here. It has been an hour, perhaps? At the most.”

“That ain't good,” Jesse said, “Soldier's the fastest horse on the ranch.”

“It will be fine. If there is trouble, I will see it first,” Amari said, patting her rifle, “Just in case, I want you boys to get Fareeha and Genji to the Lindholm's. Then go and wake all of the ranch hands.”

“Sure,” Jesse said, pulling himself up to his feet. He moved to the door, pulling on his muddy boots, “We'll be fine here. Just make sure Morrison 'n Reyes are okay.”

She nodded and slipped out the door, into the black, dreary night. Now that they were alone, Hanzo felt the awkwardness settle between them. He couldn't stop staring at Jesse's poor eye, swollen shut.

“Jesse, I – ”

“Not now, Hanzo,” Jesse interrupted him, “We're good. I know you didn't mean to. Let's focus on this and talk later.”

Hanzo nodded, although he felt a pit of guilt and anxiety settle like a weight in his stomach.

They found Fareeha still awake, scowling to herself in her bed. “Your ma's gone to run an errand,” Jesse told her, “She wants you to stay the night at the Lindholm's.”

Fareeha groaned. “Come on, Jesse! I'm a teenager! I don't need a babysitter. I'll be fine.”

“Ma's orders,” Jesse said, “Get some shoes on, kid.”

“Jesse, seriously? Can't I at least come with you two? I'll sleep on the floor.”

As Jesse continued to argue with her, Hanzo slipped across the hall into Genji's room. The commotion had already woken him up. “Is everything okay, brother?”

Hanzo fought with himself – should he tell Genji the truth or play it off as nothing? He supposed that really nothing _had_ happened, so making light of the situation was hardly lying. No need to get the whole ranch worked up in a panic, when this could have just been a case of a very stupid telegram office. “Yes,” he said, “Amari needs to move you to the Lindholm's for one night. She had to go run an errand.”

Genji narrowed his eyes, “This is low. Do you have such little honor left, that you would come up with such a convoluted scenario just to get me to meet the blacksmith?”

“What? _Damn it_ , Genji, this has _nothing_ to do with you. Just cooperate!”

“I do not believe you,” Genji said.

“ _Please_ , Genji.”

“Then tell me the truth. What is really happening?”

Hanzo sighed, burying his forehead in his palm. “I don't want anyone to panic,” he said, “But an emergency telegram came and Jack rushed off to town. Amari believes that Morrison is in danger. She has gone after him.”

“You do not believe her.”

“I have a feeling that she is wrong. He is not in danger,” he admitted, “But we all might be. Someone lured him away to make the ranch defenseless, I am sure of it.”

Genji stared at him through the darkness for a long time. They could hear Jesse and Fareeha chatting in the hall, and the sounds of their footsteps as they moved through the house. Hanzo didn't realize it, but he was holding his breath the entire time. Finally, Genji said, “I will go with Jesse and Fareeha. But you must go and get the Storm Bow.”

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

Hanzo ran.

The soggy, wet ground slowed him by trying to suck each footstep into the muck. With every stumble, he felt more and more certain that his intuition was right, but he couldn't imagine who or what might pose a threat to a peaceful cattle ranch. There were families here, and hardworking, honest people. He and Genji were the only outliers. Somehow, he knew, he and his brother were the cause of this disruption in these lives.

Up at the house, the candles he had left burning sat in waxy pools and filled his room with dim, flickering light. He checked for Storm Bow's case beneath the bed, making sure that it, and all of the gold it contained, were still there. In the dying flames, each bar of gold looked nearly molten. He had told no one that he had saved all of this money from the wreck, not even Jesse. If Jesse had ever been suspicious of the case that Hanzo had tucked beneath their bed, he had never once asked. Hanzo shoved it back in its hiding place, as far as his arm could reach. Then he took the Storm Bow from where he kept it propped up against the wall on his side of the bed, always within reach in case of emergency. At that moment, it felt so useless in his hands. When, for the first time, he may truly need his sword, it was inaccessible to him. In the Emperor's dump, perhaps. Thrown into a fire. Or maybe displayed in some museum in the capitol.

Now, all he had was this bow.

“Strike like lightning,” he whispered to the thing, stroking it like a beloved pet, before equipping his quiver on his back and leaving the house. He kept his head held high as he stepped out into the night. Everything out here looked so peaceful that it was impossible to imagine something bad might happen here. The whole ranch was buzzing with the symphony of crickets, but otherwise it was still and sleepy after the day of heavy rain. Maybe he had been nervous for nothing. His fight with Jesse had rattled him. It hadn't even been a fight, though, he realized. It had all been him and his stupid, white-hot temper.

Regardless of what was going on right now, if the ranch was at risk or not, he needed to sort things out with Jesse.

Crossing the ranch to the home of the Lindholms, Hanzo found Torbjorn and Genji seated at the table, the blacksmith's wife getting a small fire started to brew a pot of coffee. Genji was wrapped like a cocoon in quilts, despite the humid night. Probably to hide his missing legs. No one was speaking. The house was full of sleeping children, but Hanzo had a feeling that was just a convenient excuse for them to keep conversation to a minimum.

“Where is Jesse?” Hanzo whispered.

“Don't know,” Torbjorn answered.

“Is everything okay, Hanzo?” his wife asked, “Ana has never sent patients over here before...”

“Everything is fine,” Hanzo said, and he was starting to doubt it was even a lie. All of this fuss felt silly. The only problem was Jesse's poor face. “I am going to find Jesse. Behave yourself, brother.”

Genji rolled his eyes.

But Hanzo could find Jesse nowhere. He searched all of the stables and barns. He looked through Amari's house, and then went all of the way back to the main farmhouse, even checking in Morrison's and Reyes's rooms. Growing desperate, he wandered to Torbjorn's dark, silent workshop and, after that, the house shared by all of the ranch hands. All of the men were still sound asleep; Jesse had not yet made it here to wake them.

He didn't know where else to look, so he decided to check the pasture to see if High Noon was still with the herd. What if Jesse had sneaked off to follow Amari? It didn't sound like something he would do, but Hanzo couldn't explain his disappearance otherwise. Hanzo scanned the horses for her golden-brown coat, knowing that if she was still here, then so was he.

But as he studied the animals in the fields, he recognized something unusual.

Normally the horses would graze or rest in loose groups, scattered across the grasses, but tonight they had gathered in a tight herd. Every head was raised, every pair of ears perked. They paced around each other, keeping their backs to the fence. It was behavior that Hanzo was familiar with after spending so many weeks working with his own horse.

Something had spooked them.

He did spot Noon in the herd, so nervous that she even shied from him when he climbed the fence and moved towards her. Noon had _never_ acted like this around him. She wouldn't even allow him to touch her. “Where is Jesse?” he asked, “You know something, don't – ”

_BANG!_

The echo of a gunshot interrupted him, rattling the whole sky. The horses shrieked, and Hanzo leaped back against the fence to avoid being trampled as the herd panicked and fled to a corner of the pasture. There were two more shots, loud as fireworks, and then the explosion of a shotgun blast. The horses paced back and forth, the fence preventing them from escaping to safety, and each shot made their terror rise.

“Noon!” Hanzo shouted to her, trying to catch her attention. It was hopeless. The animals, in their frenzied stampede, were inconsolable.

Giving up on her, he headed across the land on foot at a half-run, in the direction of the gunfire. He couldn't even imagine what he was running towards. That final burst was totally unlike anything he had heard before, but the first shots sounded undoubtedly like Peacekeeper.

_BANG!_

Another deafening pop from the shotgun, loud enough to make his ears throb. Behind him, the horses screamed. The nearness of the mountains made the sounds echo all around him. 

He ran towards the sound. Again, the mud tripped him many times. He would stumble and scramble on hands and knees back to his feet, then run again. The ranch had never felt so vast. Every bounding step, there was nothing but empty grass stretched out before him. How big was this damn pasture? 

Hanzo made it to the top of a hill, and he was finally given the vantage point to see the rest of the land. There were figures in the field. Not one or two, but dozens. Men, and some women, their guns sparking like struck flint in the starlight. And they had horses, wild-looking animals completely unfazed by the gunshots. It was too far to make out all of the faces, but as Hanzo scanned the crowd for Jesse, he caught the familiar silvery-white hair. Based on the clothes she wore, Hanzo knew it was her. The woman who had got him drunk at the bar. 

"No..." he whispered to himself, clenching Storm Bow tighter. 

And before her, there was Jesse. He was on his stomach in the dirt, a couple of men piled on top of him, pinning him down with their weight. 

Hanzo pulled himself to his feet and raised his bow. His hands had never been steadier, in spite of his fear. No wind tonight, either. He drew an arrow and let it fly. 

There was a heartbeat, maybe two, while the arrow cut through the humid night with a near-silent hiss of speed. Then the woman screamed. It was an awful sound, enough to make his blood freeze in his veins - a scream of pain, yes, but beneath it was pure rage. It was the cry of a wounded predator. She fell to her knees, still howling, dropping her shotgun as her right arm hung useless and bleeding at her side. She reached for the arrow protruding from her bicep with her left hand and tore it free with a second shriek of pain. 

Then she looked up.

Straight at Hanzo.

"Get him!" she yelled, "I want him alive!"

Hanzo threw himself down the hill and raced for cover. A tree. A bush. A pond. Anything. He wanted to help Jesse, but he could do nothing if he was captured or killed. So he ran, his already tired calves searing in protest. 

But they had horses. The rumble of their hoofbeats was upon him in seconds. A rider launched from his mount's back, tackling Hanzo to the earth. He spat out a mouthful of grass and wrestled beneath the other man's weight. His fingers clawed viciously at the man's face and throat above him, seeking any kind of purchase. He felt hot blood dribbling down his hands, but a second rider had dismounted and snatched his flailing hands, binding them together with rope.

Still, Hanzo fought. He kicked the man, first between the legs, and when he fell with a grunt of pain, Hanzo kicked him in the skull, so hard that he was out cold instantly. Hanzo struggled to his feet, trying to pull his wrists free from the rope, but the first man, is face striped with bleeding gashes from Hanzo's nails, stuck him across the face with the butt of his revolver. 

Hanzo dropped. White-hot light blurred his vision. The world spun. His temple felt like it would explode. He had never known pain like this. In all of his years training in weapons and martial arts, nothing had ever prepared him for this moment and this agony. He was hoisted up onto the back of a horse, hanging off the saddle like a corpse. Every step of the horse's gait brought a new wave of pain so severe he nearly vomited down the animal's side. Nearly blind as his sight faded in and out of focus, he watched the horse pick up its hooves and bring them back down beneath his head. Then he was thrown off, landing on his face in the mud. He tried to pull himself to his feet or wiggle from his restraints, but before he could manage, his scratched-face captor and a second man with a long beard had taken either side of him, holding him on his knees.

"Well, well," the woman said, "Look at who we got here." She stumbled close to Hanzo, still gripping her wounded arm. Her strange red eyes glinted in the dark. He glared up at her through the throbbing in his ears. "I should kill you first, but I reckon I owe you big for leadin' us here."

"How did I - ?" Hanzo started to say, but he remembered so little of that night. Of course he had let something slip. But what had he said? He knew he hadn't mentioned Jesse! The woman laughed in his face.

"With Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes both here, comin' after you seemed far too risky. We had to keep an eye on you boys for the whole summer, waitin' for a good opportunity."

"You was the ones who cut through the fence," Jesse said. Hanzo couldn't believe that had only been this morning. It felt like a whole season ago. He regretted being so dismissive of it at the time.

Ashe didn't answer, only smiled. "We never imagined our faked little telegram would send Ana Amari away, too!"

The whole group laughed with her. Hanzo bristled. His familiar temper was rising, clearing the pain away. "What do you want with us?"

She smirked. "Haven't you read the papers? It was the worst train heist in history. A record amount of gold was stolen. Except we didn't see so much as one bar of the stuff." She turned to Jesse, "So where's the gold? What'd you do with it?"

"I don't understand..." Hanzo said.

It was Jesse who answered him. "This is the Deadlock Gang, Hanzo. She's Ashe."

Hanzo felt the nausea rise again. He looked up at the woman, recalling how they had drank together, danced together. He had nearly slept with her. He was disgusted with himself. Disgusted by her. 

She crouched down to his eye level. "Aww, you really thought I was a bounty hunter, didn't you, kid?"

There was another round of laughter from the gang. She was all cool on the surface, but this close, Hanzo could see her breathing came ragged. She was in agony over her injured arm. Her brow was slick with clammy sweat. 

"Ashe, I had nothin' to do with that money. I never even saw it," Jesse said, "I'll let you search the place. I ain't ever lied to you."

"You ain't  _lettin'_ us do anything, Jesse. We're searchin' the ranch either way. And then we're gonna burn all of Overwatch to the ground."

"Ashe!" Jesse shouted, pleading with her, "If there ain't money here, which there ain't, then why can't you just leave? I didn't steal your damn gold! These folk's 're innocent."

"Well, Jesse," Ashe said, rising to her feet to look over Hanzo again, "You know I don't much like deserters."

"Then take me! This is personal. Leave him an' the others outta this!"

"Why, Jesse, you know I can't do that. You've really screwed us all over. An eye for an eye, you know what they say." She strolled over to him as casually if she weren't currently bleeding all down her clothes, and she crouched beside Jesse to pull up his sleeve, revealing the tattoo on his forearm. "If you ain't gonna be ridin' with us no more, then I reckon you don't need this silly ol' thing either, do you? I'd wanna do the honors myself, but our Japanese friend here made sure to take that pleasure away from me. So who's up next?"

Hanzo could see panic in Jesse's eyes. The two men pinning Jesse down put extra weight forth, and Jesse could only grunt in pain beneath them. What were they planning on doing? Cutting or burning the tattoo off? The crowd of gang members began bickering over who would do what Ashe was asking, until one huge man emerged with a woodcutting axe slung over his shoulder. 

"Stop!" Hanzo roared, throwing his weight forward, trying to tear himself from the grips of his captors, "I'll give you all of the money! Just leave him alone!"

Ashe stood so that she could look down her upturned nose at Hanzo with disdain in her scarlet eyes. "You have the gold?" she asked. 

"Yes! It is in the house! Just let me go and get it!"

Ashe smirked. "In the house?" 

"Yes! Let him go!"

" _Where_ in the house?" 

"Let us both go, and I will show you."

Ashe laughed and stepped closer to him. She put a hand on his face, brushing hair from his brow. "The house ain't that big, Darlin'. Don't worry about it." She pulled her hand back and struck Hanzo across the face, heat exploding through his cheek and pain rattling in his skull. There was laughter all around him from every direction. "Cut off his arm anyway! He don't need that tattoo no more!"

The axe-wielder positioned himself over Jesse, and a woman got on her knees to hold Jesse's arm out to his side. Jesse thrashed beneath the weight of the men on top of him, his eyes wild with terror. Hanzo couldn't help but think how much he looked like the poor horse beneath that cougar. He clenched his hands into fists, trying to tug himself free. If only he could grab the Storm Bow. If only he had his sword! These men and women would regret ever coming here! 

Hanzo had to do something.

He swung his leg out from beneath him, delivering a kick to the shins of the man on his right, a kick so solid that the man released him and went down with a howl of pain. The man had a knife strapped to his belt. Hanzo reached for it, just as the man on his left grabbed for his shoulders, trying to restrain him again. Hanzo whipped his arm around, plunging the blade into the man's stomach. The instant he was released, Hanzo lurched to his feet, lunging for the axe, and then - 

_BANG!_

Pain erupted through him, pain unlike anything he had known before. He heard Jesse yell his name, but the sound was so distant to his pounding ears that it felt like they had been transported to separate universes. He fell to the wet grass, his hands roaming over his bloodied side, and when his fingers grazed the hole just beneath his ribs, a fresh blossom of pain made his eyes well with tears. Ashe stood over him, holding Peacekeeper. The only thing that had saved Hanzo was that his arrow had torn through the muscles of her arm. She had been unable to aim. Even gripping the revolver was causing her visible pain. Her shot has missed almost entirely, the bullet merely passing through Hanzo's side and back out again, leaving an exit wound so mangled and gaping and nasty that Hanzo feared he would die anyway just from bleeding out.

The axe swung up in a great arc over Jesse. 

 _No!_ Hanzo wasn't sure if he spoke it or thought it. 

This was his fault. Genji's injuries were his fault, too. If he had never been such a temperamental, spoiled little lord, then they never would have come to America, and none of this would have happened. 

But then he never would have met Jesse... he never would have known the happiness of his life at Overwatch...

Over the ringing in his ears, he heard another sound. A growing roar. 

Yes. Yes! He needed his dragon more than ever! He threw his head back and shouted up at the vast dark sky, " _Ryu ga waga teki o kurau_!"

A mighty gust of wind surged from somewhere behind him, carrying it with it static-charged air. The whole ranch was illuminated by a blinding blue-white light.

There they were. Two dragons, as large and magnificent as they had been in his dreams. They rushed at the gang with horrible gaping maws of fangs that let off sparks of lightning. Their bellows of bestial rage shook the world like an earthquake. The sound drowned out the ringing in Hanzo's ears and the sharp slice of metal through flesh, but it was not loud enough to cover Jesse's screams of agony. He arched off the ground, for the men holding him down had run as soon as the dragons had been released, and blood fountained from the stub at his elbow where his arm had once been. 

"Jesse!" Hanzo sobbed, but his voice was too weak to be heard over the roars of his spirit beasts.

The dragons passed through the closest of men, and bodies began to drop lifeless to the grass. The horses scattered, and those who managed to swing up into saddlers were lucky enough to escape. Ashe was grabbed up at the last instant by one of her men, hoisted onto his mount. Hanzo yelled in rage at their retreating backs, and his twin dragons spiraled in flight after them, picking off victims in their wake.

Hanzo watched the sight for only the first seconds before crawling towards Jesse, who was still yowling and spasming in the mud. Hanzo put his hand to the terrible wound, hoping to slow the gushing of blood, but it was useless. It had been cut clean off, just above the elbow.

"Jesse..."

Jesse's pain had him out of his mind. There was no recognition in his eyes, no sense of relief from Hanzo's presence. 

"Jesse," Hanzo moaned, weeping openly now, "I'm so sorry. I love you."

And it was haunting to him to think that this might be the end. Nearly two seasons of happiness, yet they had spent their last hours so horribly. Why had he struck him? Why had his temper been so out of control? And Jesse hadn't returned his final  _I love you._ Now he never could. 

"J-Jesse..." he said, "Let me take you to get help..."

But Amari was gone, everyone was gone, and he was so weak. He would never be able to stand, never be able to support Jesse alone. 

As the final roars of his dragons faded into the mountains, he draped himself over Jesse's quivering body and pushed his face into Jesse's neck. Jesse's familiar scent was nowhere to be found. All Hanzo could smell was the copper of freshly spilled blood. He wasn't even sure if it was his own blood or Jesse's that overpowered his nostrils, so strong he could taste it in his throat.

He felt Jesse's fingers weakly searching him, and Hanzo reached for his hand. Jesse's fingers laced in with his own. 

At least if they were to die here and now, then they would die together. 

 


	18. Chapter 18

Hanzo woke up to the familiar darkness behind his eyelids. He had not imagined he would ever wake up again, so he was surprised. He was afraid to open his eyes, afraid of the world he was waking up to. A world without Jesse, perhaps? He could feel that he was undressed but for underwear beneath a sheet, and based on the pillows behind his head – one smelling of plums, the other of tobacco – Hanzo was certain that the bed he lay in was the one he had been sharing with Jesse for months now. His left side, where he had been shot, was heavily bandaged. The flesh and muscle felt stiff and ached fiercely. When he tried to roll over, the pain stole his breath away, and he opened his eyes with a hiss.

“Hanzo?”

It was Fareeha. She sat at his bedside, holding Storm Bow in her hands. If it hadn't been for the bullet wound, Hanzo might have thought he had been transported back in time, waking up his first day on the ranch, after struggling to survive out in the wilderness with Jesse. Part of him wished it were true. He could redo everything, but better this time.

“Where is Jesse?” Hanzo asked. He sat up in the bed very slowly, so that he did not strain his wound.

Fareeha's face looked haunted, her eyes hollow.

Hanzo gripped the sheets, prepared for her devastating answer. “He did not make it?”

Fareeha bit her bottom lip. “No, he is alive, but...”

Hanzo didn't need to hear anything else. He swung his legs out of bed, the room swaying for a few seconds before he found his balance, and he braced himself against the wall as he tried to search through his drawers for clothes “Where is he?”

“In mum's operating room,” she said, setting Storm Bow down on the bed as she rose to her feet, “Here. Let me help.”

She found him a pair of jeans and one of Jesse's button-up shirts, and he pulled them on, using her shoulder for support as he eased into his pants one leg at a time. “How long was I out?” Hanzo asked her.

“Almost two days. Mum said you lost thirty percent of the blood in your body, because an artery in your abdomen was severed by the shot. And she said you are on strict bed rest until your body has produced more blood. I'm supposed to make sure you stay here,” Fareeha told him, “But... they just finished the procedure, and... Hanzo, I really think you need to go see him...”

Fareeha helped Hanzo hobble out onto the porch. It was late afternoon, and though the hottest part of the day was over, the air was still humid from yesterday's downpour. They stood for a moment, Hanzo taking in the sight of the ranch spread across the valley before them: the fences zig-zagging across the rolling green hills, the barns and stables, the smoke pouring from the chimney of Torbjorn's forge, Amari's home nestled in the orchard. A pair of ranch hands on the backs of sleek horses cantered across a pasture, guiding the cattle to a smaller paddock for the evening, their dogs dashing between the legs of the herd. In the distance, just by the treeline, a trio of whitetail deer drank from one of the aqueducts. He swatted a mosquito off his neck. This may not be the jagged mountains and spring blossoms and rice paddies of Hanamura, but his spirit felt connected to this land all the same. He had suffered here, and survived here, and _loved_ here. And he suddenly _knew_ that if he lost this place, it would be like losing his title and his sword all over again.

“Will Jesse live, Fareeha?”

“I don't know,” she answered, “I suppose it depends on how his procedure went.”

He nodded and began the long walk to Amari's house. Fareeha was strong enough to help Hanzo with every step, and he was so grateful for her at his side. When things settled down – if they ever did – then he wanted to thank her properly. Perhaps he would buy her a bow like his own.

“How did I get back to the house?” Hanzo asked, “Who saved me?”

Fareeha smiled. “It was your brother,” she said, “Well, he didn't get you back to the house. But he had been watching out the window at the Lindholm's, and he saw your dragons. He knew there must have been trouble. We all rode out there to help. Thankfully Angela was here. She stabilized the both of you until Mum got back.”

Angela. Someone else he was greatly indebted to. What could he offer her? Was there anything that money could buy that could repay her for his life?

“It is a shame that they escaped,” he muttered.

“Who? The Deadlock Gang?” Fareeha asked, and she was grinning now, “Your dragons ate up most of them!”

“But Ashe - ”

“Was caught by Jack,” she said, “Didn't we tell you? Soldier is the fastest horse on the whole ranch. Anyway, they hadn't gone too far. Ashe was bleeding out just as badly as you were. Mum fixed her up, and Jack has her on the way to the sheriff right now as we speak.”

Hanzo nodded. He preferred her dead, but he supposed prison would have to do. “Is Morrison mad at me?” he asked.

She stopped in mid-step. “Why would he be mad at _you_ , Hanzo? You had nothing to do with this. Did you?”

“No! Of course not,” Hanzo said, “But none of this would have happened if I had not come here...”

“No one thinks that, Hanzo. It was more Jesse's fault than yours, anyway. And everyone here is glad to have him home. Even Reyes, despite how mean he is about it. We're glad you're here, too, Hanzo.”

Her confession flustered Hanzo so much he could think of nothing to say. How could any of them possibly be happy that he was here? “And how is Jesse?” he changed the subject.

Again, the topis of Jesse's health made Fareeha's face fall. “You really just need to see for yourself, Hanzo...”

“So it is bad.”

“Well, it isn't good.”

They managed their way to the Amari home, making the rest of the trip in silence. Opening the door, they found Angela slumped in the sofa before the cold, empty fireplace. She was sound asleep, her clothes still caked in drying blood. Some of Amari's cats had curled up around her, and they watched Hanzo and Fareeha enter with looks that almost seemed to be disappointment, as though they all knew Hanzo shouldn't have been walking around like this, and they couldn't believe he dared show his face around here before giving himself time to heal.

“Can you make it the rest of the way on your own, Hanzo?” Fareeha whispered, so as to not wake Angela, “I have to go let Brigitte know you're all right. I promised her that I would.”

Hanzo figured he could manage the last ten or twenty steps on his own, despite the pain in his side. However, if Angela woke up, her wrath would certainly be worse than his pain. “Stall her for a while. Tell her I will meet her back at the house. I need some time.”

Fareeha nodded and slipped back outside. As soon as she had shut the door, the house became dim and eerie. The shadows the jars of specimens cast across the floor were unsettling, and the smells of all the drying herbs hung from the ceiling made his eyes water. He knew, though, that standing there and taking it all in was just procrastination. He didn't want to enter the operating room, because as soon as he had, Jesse's fate would become real to him. As though sensing his indecisiveness, Angela's head rolled to the side in her sleep. Hanzo tensed, the contraction of his abdominal muscles sending shooting pains up his spine. He hurried for the door to the operating room as quickly as his limp could take him.

Inside, he found Jesse sprawled on his back in the bed. His eyes were closed, beads of sweat across his brow. Hanzo rushed to his side, ignoring his pain, and he caressed the side of Jesse's face with trembling knuckles.

Jesse's eyelids fluttered opened. He smacked his cracked lips and said, his voice sluggish, “Thank God. Hanzo. Yer okay.” Hanzo felt a heavy cloak lift off his shoulders, and he released a tremendous sigh of relief. Jesse was alive, and he could talk, and he could move. Everything would be okay. He tried to climb up onto the bed, but Jesse put a hand on his chest and stopped him. “H-Hanzo...” he croaked, “be careful of the arm.”

Oh. How had Hanzo forgotten?

The arm was heavily bandaged from shoulder to wrist, but protruding from the end of the bandages was a new hand. A metal hand, heavy, but surprisingly intricate down to the joints of the fingers.

“Jesse...”

“Torb had a prototype already made up for your brother,” Jesse explained, “Just had to... switch some bits around to make it for my left arm instead of his right."

“Is it... Can you...?”

Hanzo couldn't get the question out, but Jesse seemed to understand what he was asking. Screwing up his face from the effort, he managed to wiggle a few of the fingers, although the motions were jerky and unnatural. “Angela says I'll get the hang of them eventually,” he laughed, and Hanzo chuckled with him.

“So you can still hold me?” Hanzo asked.

“Yup,” Jesse said, and he opened his flesh-and-blood right arm, inviting Hanzo up into the bed with him. Hanzo curled in against him, resting his head on Jesse's chest.

“I thought I had lost you,” Hanzo said.

Jesse nuzzled into his hair, and their legs tangled together in the sheets. “They were amazing, Hanzo. I _told you_ there were two of em.”

Hanzo smiled. “You did. You were right.” He slipped his hand into Jesse's metal palm. It wasn't the same, but he could get used to it.

“I love you,” Jesse said.

“You, too,” Hanzo replied, “Always.”

Jesse gave a happy moan that made little rumbles in his chest beneath Hanzo's cheek. He closed his eyes and sighed. It would have been so easy for him to fall asleep there, to stay wrapped up in Jesse's limbs like that until they were both well enough to leave the bed. But just as he was beginning to doze off, Jesse spoke up again. “You should go see your brother, Hanzo.”

“I will later,” Hanzo murmured into Jesse's skin.

“You should go now. I think you'll wanna see him,” Jesse said, and he nudged Hanzo with his knees, trying to shove him from the bed.

Hanzo gave a huff of irritation as he rolled away from Jesse and pulled himself to his feet. He was certain that any conversation he had with Genji would ruin the content mood he was in. He felt like things had turned out all right, and maybe he could see his future here at the ranch, a distant glimmer on the metaphorical horizon. Genji was the one loose thread. And he knew all it would take was a single argument with him to spoil everything.

“You at least owe him a thank you,” Jesse said, “We'd both be dead if he hadn't seen yer dragons and got us help.”

Hanzo nodded and backed towards the door, reluctant to take his eyes off Jesse for even a moment. But as he hovered in the doorway, Jesse grinned at him. “Hey, sugar – how does my face look?” he laughed, tapping the cheekbone that Hanzo had struck, which was now a sickening green bruise.

Hanzo scoffed at him and turned, stomping the couple of steps to Genji's door. He knocked, but the answer that came was muffled, nearly incoherent, so he simply let himself in.

“ _Onii-chan..._ ”

Hanzo stared at the shape of his brother in the bed and smiled. He didn't wait for an invitation; he climbed up beside him, flinging the sheets off his legs. Newly attached metal legs. “Genji...”

“ _Onii-chan..._ _omizu..._ ”

There was a pitcher of water and an empty glass on Genji's bedside table, and Hanzo poured it for him, propping him up on the pillows and helping him take a drink. Genji gulped down the entire glass, and Hanzo poured him a second, which Genji drank half of before coughing and spluttering. It seemed to perk him up a little bit, some awareness returning to his eyes.

“How do you feel, brother?” Hanzo asked.

Genji licked his wet lips and smiled at him. “Angela thinks... with therapy... I could be up... and... walking... in a month,” he speech was a little slow and clumsy, his lids seemed unwilling to stay open, but despite that all, Genji appeared to be back. Not the brooding, bitter young man that had taken Genji's place the past few months, but the little brother who Hanzo had missed so terribly. “But I want to be running, Hanzo. And... and climbing!”

“Give it time,” Hanzo laughed, setting the glass of water back on the bedside table. He reached for Genji's new arm, running his palm up and down the metal. It was warm, and he could feel the most delicate little flutter of machination within. The thing seemed just as alive as a human arm. When his hand brushed down the fingers, Genji's thumb twitched, and both brothers shared a smile. “What changed your mind?”

“Jesse,” Genji answered, “He volunteered immediately. I... I couldn't allow him to get cocky... he might start to think... that he loves you more than I do.” Somehow, he managed a wheezing laugh.

Hanzo rolled his eyes, an act to hide the emotion that washed over him. He had not lied when he told Jesse that he didn't feel any translation of _I love you_ to Japanese was quite fitting, and even if there was a perfect translation, he and Genji never would have said it to each other before. So this was the first time Genji had said anything like this, and while Hanzo was touched, he couldn't deny it made him uncomfortable. But why? The Lindholms exchaged the words at every chance they got, and Fareeha even told her mother that she loved her on occasion. After nearly losing Genji, and then the months of feeling so alienated from him that Hanzo might as well have lost him, he could not deny it was a relief to hear his brother say it.

Jesse had taught him so many things. He had taught him to sew a split seam in a shirt, to milk a cow, to repair a fence. He had taught him how to break in a wild horse. He had taught Hanzo hard work, patience, selflessness. But Hanzo thought that perhaps the most important thing that Jesse had taught him was that anger was the emotion of cowards. It took so much more strength, yet was so much more rewarding, to express joy and sadness and passion and love. He didn't have to hide behind his temper any longer.

“Jesse once asked me if my life back in Hanamura was a happy one,” he said, “And when I thought about it, every single one of my happy memories was simply growing up with you.”

Genji groaned, “You're making me sick, Hanzo!”

Hanzo smirked at him, deciding to change the subject. Neither of them were good at this, but he supposed they had the rest of their lives to finally understand what it meant to be family. “So Angela believes you will be up and walking in a month?” he asked, “Well she is wrong. You'll be walking in two weeks. I will not go easy on you, brother.”

“I tried to tell her that, too!” Genji laughed, “But she would not believe me.”

“We will teach everyone not to underestimate a Shimada.”

Genji was beaming from his nest of pillows, “And I plan to master this arm long before your cowboy does!”

It seemed Jesse had been eavesdropping from his own room through the shared wall, because the brothers laughed together when they heard him call out, “We'll see about that!”

 


End file.
